This is nothing like I thought it would be in high school. I envied the lives of Kurt Cobain and Elliott Smith-- to the point where I blew coke and pain pills; drank cheap bum wines and malt liquor and would romance the idea that I was living as an artist. I couldn't cope with the normal run of the mill life that every 13 year old was jogging along with, so instead I took my mother's pink bic razor and burnt the bottom off of it. I had heard a girl in 7th grade tell me how she'd done this, and I thought it would be a good idea. The plastic dripped onto my leg and I clasped my fists together-- one around the razor, the other around the lighter. When I cut my wrist, blood didn't come right away. Instead, the sway red and gray wound felt awkward like a paper cut, and I had wished I didn't feel that way anymore. I continued to cut my wrists occasionally, but turned to something more gratifying-- like punching my temples.

I suffered from migraines, so this didn't help at all either. When I was 9 years old I tried to hang myself from my older brother's top bunk on our bunk bed with a belt that I wrapped around the bed post. When I woke on the floor, I started crying from a spell that would last around three days. Everything made me sad-- my dog, whom I had embarassingly hurt by throwing a ball just out of the reach of the links of the chain wrapped around the tree in the back yard where my family was having some barbeque or get together. My uncle yelled at me, and I went to my room and pretended to go to sleep. I was deathly afraid at this time of being possessed by the devil-- and by ghosts and demons being underneathe my bed, so I would say a thirty minute prayer, including not to let our house burn down, in case I had left the clothes too close to the burner in the laundry room, indubitably.

These thoughts went away the first time I drank at a punk show when I was 12. I tried fighting one of my friends who had pushed me. I became defensive and jealous over anything that was mine and especially the things that I wanted to be mine-- or thought would be in a matter of time. My mannerisms were awkward-- my hair was long and I was overweight. I was a tragic looking sloppy kid who would pick his clothes from a spectrum of shadows. Everything was draped in black, and I would colour my finger nails black to match my black eyeliner. The bands, however were my friends who would write these lyrics to me. From this point, the room spun its first spin and I picked up a pen so as to never stop writing.