What do you put your hand on in all this? I’ve called it writing, but I’m beginning to realize that the only constant I have had is fear. This, and so when someone tells me I am logical my response is to explain that I must be logical because I am not rational and I wish, I wish again for the thousandth time that I do not have such deep-seated habits of seeming. No one believes you’re drowning if you laugh when you say it.

But I am afraid, afraid I will always be afraid, afraid of other people, afraid of myself. There is nothing in myself that I love tonight. There is nothing in myself that I want. If your house was burning down, what one thing would you save? Not me. Not me.

I know that I will not feel that way after a while. I might not feel that way tomorrow. I know that I am not alone and not unwanted, though maybe I should be and maybe my father is right when he says it is my fault I am the way I am. No one did this to me. No one ever told me I was a failure, no one ever—

But I will lose my ability to say the right things. Like when she says she does not want to be beautiful, she wants to be alive—and I wince because I have told her she is beautiful so many times and maybe I have hurt her by doing that and maybe—But god, to me the living are beautiful. And when I say someone is beautiful, when I say, “you’re beautiful,” I mean, “you are so amazingly alive that I can see you through your skin.” But maybe she knows that, maybe—

I don’t need anything to be a certain way when I see it in order to call it beautiful. I just need to see it.

It is so hard to see people. They hide so much. But when you do…

Oh, but then.

If I could just—

If I could just—

If I could just—

Sometimes I think “if” is as bad as “should” and “never.” If I could just say what I mean instead of what you hear.