emails that i have received lately

"Hi Natalie, I hope you are feeling better, and that you have managed to get some sleep. Do you mind if I come to visit you or you come into college tomorrow or Monday just to see how things are going? I can give you photocopies of your courseworks and exam scripts that you asked for if you like. Take care."

the photocopies of my coursework and exam scripts are to provide objective evidence for people who care about such things that i am sometimes able to do things in a manner that may be perceived as an academic achievement

"Hi Nat, How are you doing? Not sure if you received my previous email. I am sorry to hear that things are not very well. Hang in there. Email me when you need to. Do you still remember how to do the safe place exercise and the healing light exercise? I remember that you felt calmer after doing those."

the safe place exercise is where i imagine a place where i feel safe and able to retreat into whenever i feel like it and then feel calm. i usually imagine my wardrobe because i fall asleep there sometimes and my dad has to carry me out

the healing light exercise is where i imagine a ball of white light slowly moving from the top of my head through my body and then leaving through my feet taking with it the bad feelings. i repeat this several times and then i usually fall asleep

i want to say 'in twenty-four hours your exams will be over' and for it to be the truth. i want to replace 'exams' with 'life'. i want someone to punch my ovaries and have them fall out of my body. i want to unfollow everyone on twitter then fall asleep underwater.  i want to disappoint everyone in the most efficient manner.

in the shower today i thought about a book i finished reading earlier which is called 'eat when you feel sad' where a character called robert does a lot of things and the sentences plainly describe the things he does. i thought about a text file i began doing at the beginning of this year. the text file is called 'what i did everyday' and in it i describe the things that made the day distinct in my memory except i stopped this after a month or so, an unintentional abortion because i got busy maybe. when i look at the text file now there are blank spaces that represent the days which slipped through without being written about and this makes me afraid, i think because i don't like forgetting, or the idea that i will continue to forget things and forget feelings. i feel like i am always fighting against time. if i completed the text file i would be able to in the future re-read everything that i did and point out the moments in which my limbs slackened with disregard for anything but the moment itself. the moments where i turn my face towards my bed panel and fall asleep without fear. i have drafts in my phone about the things i remember people saying, or the things i remember about a certain person, or the things i want to say to someone. a question i asked a friend was where does the love go when a relationship dissolves and the answer i wanted was that they remain, in spite of the end, quietly tucked away in separate minds. i fell asleep at a table dreaming of a video which would re-create the physical landscape of the past nine months but now that i am awake i remember that i have already began to pack away my things, the pictures on the wall, the books that kept me company. i threw the christmas plant away and on the day i left i dropped my keys somewhere and maybe that means something too. i asked her what she thought the worst emotions anyone could feel were and she said despair. i thought about that and how the opposite of that is hope and the way i am making plans for the future like i want to live. someone said 'literally nothing could make me think you were more emo' and i thought about that too and the way i used to keep shorts in my school bag so i could change out of my skirt to climb the school gates. if it is within your capacity to do something that could make someone else feel a bit better about being alive however small that might be: why not. the people i have been spending time with here laugh often and are excited about simple things but are not simple people. they put their number into my phone and text me to make sure that i am safe though tube stations away. maybe there is a but coming. maybe i will see everyone i like again. maybe i will never get to see anyone i like again. maybe i will continue to be bad at replying emails and text messages. i have been doing other things like singing old songs sometimes, curling up against different bodies, and stripping context from language. there was one night where i watched people dance like something was skidding through still air and their faces moved around me in slow motion. i said i would be able to find my way back home and walked into the winter night where strangers cycled alongside shouting racial slurs and strangers slept and awoke in their cars without dying. if anything i felt only a curious sense of relief at the thought of being a girl, alone, in the dark, with a dead cell phone. i have cried once in the past week but i have also walked in and out of trains feeling as though i have somewhere to leave and somewhere to go.

extreme follow friday

ani_smith: maximum gaga by lara glenum my happy life by lydia millet pee on water by rachel b glaser the weather stations by ryan call and the changeling by joy williams youngmatthew: a coney island of the mind lawrence ferlinghetti road-side dog by czesaw milosz reflections on language by noam chomsky the stuff of thought by steven pinker burnt island by d. nurkse crispinbest: jimmy corrigan: the smartest kid on earth by chris ware the rest is noise by alex ross the instructions by adam levin hiroshima by john hersey actual air by david berman susie_and: the unbearable lightness of being by milan kundera the hours by michael cunningham brother of the more famous jack by barbara trapido good morning, midnight by jean rhys indecision by ben kunkel djberndt 'alt lit' the weather stations by ryan call scary no scary by zachary schomburg person by sam pink light boxes by shane jones everything's fine by socrates adams 'non-alt lit' wind up bird chronicle by haruki murakami white noise by don dellilo the ghost soldiers by james tate the sun also rises by hemingway and easter parade by richard yates michaelinscoe: the easter parade by richard yates eat when you feel sad by zachary german cognitive behavioral therapy by tao lin scary no scary by zachary schomburg crime and punishment by fyodor dostoyevsky american psycho by bret easton ellis sarahsan: how should a person be by sheila heti the pill versus the springhill mine disaster by richard brautigan cat's cradle by kurt vonnegut the short stories of f.scott fitzgerald by f.scott fitzgerald human war by noah cicero kerrylillies : white noise by don delillo how we are hungry by dave eggers cats eye or 'the handmaids tale by margaret atwood a supposedly fun thing i'll never do again by david foster wallace any joan didion gregalvang: sum by david eagleman bonk by mary roach when you are engulfed in flames by david sedaris open house by beth ann fennelly shopgirl by steve martin

gilesruffer: bonsai by alejandro zamba pan by knut hamsun escapes by joy williams the bird room by chris killen love roma by minoru toyoda staceteague: sula by toni morrison the wind up bird chronicle by haruki murakami revenge of the lawn by richard brautigan how we are hungry by dave eggers the human war by noah cicero iamtully: hopscotch by julio cortazar the waves by virginia woolf nightwood by djuna barnes almost transparent blue by ryu murakami the philosophy of andy warhol by andy warhol tao_lin: (a list of what books i like is here: http://www.goodreads.com/review/list/89893) from THE IDEOGRAMS by Matthew Rohrer 1993-94 by Curtis Sittenfeld Driver by Frederick Barthelme Willing by Lorrie Moore C U S T O D I A by Ben Lerner borispasterlike: lost illusions by honore de balzac a lover's discourse by roland barthes 77 dream songs by john berryman eros the bittersweet by anne carson poemland by chelsey minnis holiecrap: almost transparent blue by ryu murakami the easter parade by richard yates less than zero by bret easton ellis eat when you feel sad by zachary german all the tao books "ALL" leonyuc: the great gatsby by f. scott third elegy by rainer maria rilke no one belongs here more than you by miranda july the myth of sisyphus by albert camus crush by richard siken quitemetal: kitchen by banana yoshimoto kafka on the shore by haruki murakami breakfast of champions by kurt vonnegut self-help by lorrie moore a perfect day for bananafish by j.d. salinger thiscameron: infinite jest by david foster wallace the fountainhead by ayn rand a heartbreaking work of staggering genius by dave eggers you shall know our velocity by dave eggers waiting for godot by samuel beckett