I used to crawl under the covers of my bed, and stare out the window at the emerald tree tops and the hazy velvet sky with transportation shooting through it, smelling the smell of an airplane at night, of finding newness in the darkened sky. I wouldn't fall asleep for hours, but these were the good nights.

Mostly, my mind terrified me and monsters burst forth like they were escaping a jail. It was like the absence of sun made the cage all the weaker. I knew I would think of things like lonilness, sadness. I'd lay on the floor and imagine i were laying on a forest floor alone, and then i'd fall asleep and dream about the concrete storage warehouse-- my bed too high on top of boxes, so removed from my family. So I sought and I seek a way to keep these locked up. I watched I Love Lucy. I rearrange my room. I stare at a computer screen, my eyes drying and tiring. And when it finally got to be too much, I'd wander, crying, scared, alone. I was sure everyone had stopped breathing or evaporated into the stardust and it was just me, forever. I'd hide under my bed or stretch my arms to my parents bedroom, curling up against the door, my eyes shaking with tears.

i still haven't figured out how to get my mind to stop, to lay to sleep when i want it to. It comes alive with the shooting stars, it weilds swords and daggars, and when I try to get my body to rest, it rebels. I have no control.

i like being alone, but i don't like being left alone with my mind. it scares the crap out of me.

i went outside so gemma could potty. it was so cold my feet were burning on the cement of our steps to our house. the grass was white from the ice that had come. i brought a sweater but i shook it out. little feathers flew everywhere. later when i was about to go back inside, a tiny feather floated to the ground right in front of me.

when i was younger, my mind would often take over so that my eyes weren't really doing anything, you know? it was all my head, i was living entirely inside of there. and then later, i would open my eyes and see a really dark sky and realize there was no one around me and i was so ordinary and small and i would cry.

i still do this. every day. i want to stop so bad. i want to close my eyes and see the same thing, the same exact thing that i see when tehyre open. or something right in front of me, holding something i can reach out and hold. like diving in the sea while i'm standing on the dock.

please pelase please.

i got a package from china. it was a green envelope with chinese writings all over. inside was a huge white snowball in it. i unraveled it. it smelled like old flowers. inside was a tiny wooden bear. my dog wanted to bite the bear. i laughed a lot.

i listened to the singing of a pretty girl and stared at the pink and purple sky with the cars driving by, dissapearing into the green land.

we cannot live in a castle because we are not princesses. we are humbled peasents. we tell the world that, but our home is huge.

i came to my home when i still felt little even though i was the size i am now. it was surrounded by tall christmas trees. i think when i have my own home (which i think about as often as the second hand) i will plant christmas trees. one year my best friend and i made snowmen outside while watching people cut the trees and give us a little bit of money. i think i might give my trees away for free.

my home had an ark outside of it. the man who had lived here, who had died, who we have made up stories about, built an ark in his shack and so get it out he had to cut the shjack open. the ark was here when we looked at the house but when my mum decided she wanted it, it was gone.

the house was big. the bottom floor was a cave, like a grotto. it was all cement. we broke in. after we bought the house, it was summer, and i would play games and heat up hot dogs and if i had to use the toilet i had to walk across the street. we live across the street from a big lake called deep lake because they have never reached the bottom. they have toilets there, and a soda machine. i would take over little coins and buy me and my sister sugary drinks while my parents put walls up downstairs.

i remember when my room as done, after i picked out blue like the top of the sea for the carpets, and i sat in my closet with my knees under my chin and felt safe. we moved my stuff in. i had a big golden desk. i sat there and watched josie and the pussycats. i could see the driveway and people coming in and out and my grandmother fixed us dinner and brought us plates with various foods like we were rich and had cooks, and i awtched the pussycats sing and eat and i was happy, very happy.

in the summertime my family sit on our porch that hovers over the ground and build a fire and eat chocolate melted and watch the bats sink close to our heads and sing. we have a lake in our backyard that ducks live in. we weatching them grow from ducklings.

one fall my house burned. it caught on fire and my family escaped into a really dark night and we heard our animals that we could not yelping for their lives and it was very painful. and then we had to live in a tiny treehouse in my town, where it was only a short walk to the grocery store where i could buy sweet milk for our snow.

while we stayed in the tiny house, sharing rooms and anger, we built our house even bigger. i would come to visit the construction and wonder how we were ever going to fill it up. it seemed too big.

i'm not sure if it is, but it isn't a castle, but it also isn't a shack. and if we're peasents we don't look like peasents. either way, we'll never be royalty.

i found a bobby pin with rusted sea brine on it this morning. i used it to hold my braids to my head. it just broke in peices and my braids went tumbling down to the ground.