tulips

i've felt so dizzy for the past couple of days. my head feels like it's swimming with doubts and concerns. my stomach feels the same way.

a seventeen year old alone in amsterdam with a suitcase? i'm scared.

i know this is the crazy thing i've wanted to do for months. uncertainty is to be expected, surely.

i know i'll be safe. my 'insurance' will take care of me.

i know i'll be happy. my 'insurance' would do anything for me. before i even ask.

i really thought you would turn up tonight. i can't blame you for disappointment this time though, can i?

When you said tulips
I knew that you were mine
When I caught you there
Crying in the night
Wearing my jacket
Wearing that smile
I knew that I'd found you
This could be an opportunity
Were you unawares?
Did it catch you out?
Or did it break you in
Right from the start?
It's as pure as fire
It's as pure as snow
I knew that I'd found you
This could be an opportunity
If you promise to let it grow

'Cos you're the one I love

Grey Street

Right now I feel like I can do anything. I can cut my hair and buy expensive clothes and walk out of my job and pack a suitcase and just get on a plane with a one way ticket.

I feel gorgeous and strong, and I don't think I've ever felt like this before.

I'm only seventeen for christ's sake. What do I need money for? What have I got to save for?

A month ago, somehow, I thought I was with the person I'd spend the rest of my life with. Even though I felt so alone. More alone than now, even.

I was struggling to hold myself together everytime he'd carelessly close his eyes and leave me alone lying next to him: another two and a half hours together, lost.

When he'd get up on a saturday morning and go to work, leaving me alone in his parents house. By choice. What was I to think other than that money meant more to him than spending a day with me. And the investment? Of course... And then sometimes sunday too. I wonder now if it wasn't even about the money.

I wouldn't have cared if things had been different. But they weren't. They were the only two days we had together. It made me question myself. Was I mad to want to spend time with my boyfriend?

Clearly.

When he took back sunday it broke my heart. Spending time with me was that painful. And then he told me saturday nights. No wonder I don't seem to spend any more time alone than before.

How would you have felt, reader? Was I just sensitive? Maybe he was just ignorant. I don't think he does know what he's lost.

bon voyage: i love you

i went for a drive with my mum on saturday. i got such a mad dose of deja vu sitting next to her listening to cds that haven't been out of their cases for years.

i remember when just the two of us used to drive down to wales to see my grandparents. i used to love having her all to myself and being able to sit in the front seat instead of my sister or my dad.

i still got that same feeling i got way back then, before adam, before anthony, even before jordan. that feeling where i'd be practically squirming in my seat rehearsing the same sentence over and over in my head.

but it never did come out. never will.

we walked along a beach together and talked about amsterdam. i can't believe i could forget how much she wants me to be happy. she booked my flight for me and she found me somewhere to stay. she even wanted to come with me for the first few days.

i leave on saturday morning.

foolish love

Who knew what this would actually feel like? Certainly not me. It's been so long since I've been in this position. I don't like it.

I can feel this unyielding crushing force in the centre of my chest. I know it's not completely due to him, but right now it's hard to pin it to anything else.

I so badly want to ask him why he spent those last few days with me if he knew that ultimately he didn't want to be with me. But do I already know? Sometimes I wish it didn't play such a huge part in the relationship. Sometimes I think that's what ruined it.

Being alone for the first time since I was thirteen has really opened my fucking eyes. I get so dependent on one person that everything else seems to disappear around me. Everything.

Would I have hated my last few years at school so much if I hadn't always had someone over the age of twenty to mock it with? Would I have wanted money so badly if I'd been a normal teenager and didn't hang out at bars in Newcastle friday and saturday nights?

Sometimes I hate what everything I've been exposed to has turned me into. This isn't who I wanted to be. Honestly.

And now because I have absolutely nothing to bring joy to my life but bed and tv, my mind can't help but wander to the question:

What exactly are you going to do with your life, Hannah?

I don't want to hold you and feel so helpless
I don't want to smell you and lose my senses
And smile in slow motion
With eyes in love
I twist like a corkscrew
The sweetness rising
I drink from the bottle, weeping
Why won't you last?
Why can't you last

sunday, bloody sunday

isn't it strange how everything is never enough? i think i gave up figuring things out a long time ago. when all you get is words covering silence you know it's time to give up.

sunday.

seek solace in paracetamol

A while ago my mum said something to me that almost made everything I find unexplainable about myself drop into place and become reasonable and rational for the first time. She said that sometimes she worries that my character is such as a result of the behaviour of my sister when we were children.

She said that because my sister demanded so much attention, she thinks this caused me to be as reserved as I am. My mum spent so much time running after my sister when she was a toddler that she says I stopped crying quite early on. She said that at the time it was a Godsend having this silent baby, but now she looks back and feels tremendous guilt and regret.

She told me how she remembers watching me grow up and noticing that I'd always keep things to myself. I always used to hide if I was upset and wait until I was alone before I'd start to cry. And by the time it had got to that point there would be so many things attributing to my sadness that it would all just come out in one huge fit. I remember my eyes would burn with red hot tears; the muscles in my neck would tense trying to dampen the sobs. My hand would be holding my head; fingers entwined with my hair. I'd sit there for hours sometimes, keeping as quite as possible.

I still do it now - I did it just over an hour ago.

I remember at the end of this conversation I had with my mum, she told me never to simply "put up and shut up". And although neither of us had mentioned it we both knew exactly what she meant.

I've always found it so difficult to admit there's a problem with anything to anyone. It just keeps pushing me closer and closer to the edge until I really feel as though I'm actually going to lose it and live in a hospital for the next few years. I'm genuinely scared that soon I'll be laying down on a hospital bed talking about medication with a nurse.

Last week I wanted to kill myself with paracetamols again. The 'reassuring' thing is, I know I could do it. Afterall I actually did it. And not only did I do it, but afterwards I still felt so determined to go through with it that I went to sleep without telling anyone what I'd done. I thought I was closing my eyes forever. All it was was the best night's sleep I ever had.

When I come home on a sunday night (now to be saturday nights) after a 'break' at your house I climb the hundreds of stairs to my bedroom and I sit on my bed and I start to cry. Maybe it's for my sick mother, or my lonely sister in her house with no one to share it with. Perhaps it's for Anthony and all the love he wastes on me. Or for my Clueless Boyfriend. Or myabe it's for the realistion that I've done this for the past three years of my life.

I hate being here in this house. I just want to escape its darkness and coldness and sickness and loneliness. I just want someone to take care of me.

Why doesn't anyone notice that I'm cooking and cleaning and washing and supermarket shopping. I'm washing my mum's disappearing hair and sitting next to her during treatments. I'm only seventeen. Doesn't anyone understand that?

I just want to fall asleep with my mum's arms around me. Telling me everything's OK and she can look after me now. But I can't even give her a hug. I don't know what's worse - feeling a huge space where there used to be my mother's breast or a cold and heavy gel implant.

Sometimes it's like I think it's another person. I just wish my real mum would come back.

I'm sorry for being so miserable. I wish you'd make it better but you won't.

The Corner Booth

You hadn’t talked to your father in/Such a long time, he/Left the office early and came home/Late every night, your/Mother wore her mask so well, you couldn’t/See the pain, the guilt, you simply couldn’t tell that she was/Dying on the inside just/Like you never expected//

I let them try to change you into ex-/Actly what you weren’t and you/Stood up for yourself, how brave, what a/Man that makes you, you’re/So non-conformal, so unique, you’re so de-/Termined and yet so raw, can’t you see/That this e-motion is one/Hundred percent for real//

You talk of my ex-boyfriend so much, lets talk about/Your ex just for once, yes I/Know that she felt neglected, I can/Understand that, she/Felt as though you looked right through her, like she/Never existed in your eyes, you/Never treated her like some-/One you were supposed to love//

I used your love as an excuse to/Shut myself off, I didn’t/Want to share your love with the whole world so I/Kept it to myself, I/Am aware of how I can be, aware of/My complete disregard for your feelings, don’t/Lecture me on how to be/A better person//

You with your piercing stare, me with my/Long dark hair, what an odd pair we must’ve/Looked to that frail old couple, do you re-/Member that old roadside diner, you/Ordered us pancakes with syrup and some/Black coffee, we talked in such detail about your/Life, your parents, your mother, I/Know you miss her dearly//

And so the subject always came back to/Me and my treacherous past, you must’ve/Had so much fun flicking through those painful/Moments in my life, you/Used your position to make me feel weak in your/Cold stare, you pinned me down like a/Butterfly, wings flapping, eyes wide open/Begging for your mercy//

Perhaps just a few more seconds in that/Godforsaken room and I would’ve/Lost my mind completely, like some kind of/Lunatic, your tone of/Voice made the situation somewhat clearer to my/Inexperienced self, God do I re-/Member the look on your face once you/Realised what you’d done//

You’re the professional psychoanalyst, tell me/What the hell is wrong with me, am I/Too far gone to return to the/Life I lived before any of this, but then/How can I expect to be cured when I/Don’t even want to be, I just/Want some kind of re-lease from this/Feeling you force upon me//

Does it bother you that I first loved you because/You were the father that I needed so/Desperately, after all you were so very/Caring and nurturing, but then once/I had confessed my darkest secrets to you/Turned into the monster that I left be-/Hind, I don’t think you’ll ever know how/Sorry I am for that//

If you never wanted to see me again, you wouldn’t/Be sitting here right now, I know we/Said so many things we regret, or at-/Least I know I did, you/Loved to make me feel about as/Wanted as a broken toy, you were the/Five-year-old with the tendency to/Break all of your own rules//

Can you believe that it never even/Crossed my mind that you were with someone/Else when you were with me, how/Naïve is that? I mean/Why would a successful businessman/Such as yourself be interested/In someone like me, I couldn’t/Even use my knife and fork right//


It didn’t take long for you to change me into the/Exact opposite of what I/Was before I met you, my/Personality went through such an a-/Mazing transformation, you taught me how to/Be assertive and still possess the little/Girl charm that you said I would/ Never lose no matter what//