Sometimes (most of the time), I feel like I came into this world with all the answers & all of the sparkle that I would need, & as I've gotten older, it's all been drained for me.

As a child, I knew where I felt safe & right & good. At my piano. In bed with a book. On stage, purging out all of my bad feelings.

And all of a sudden, I'm 23 years old, looking for a copy of When Bad Things Happen to Good People. Because I'm fresh out of answers & chock full of sadness & when my sweet-as-dextrose boyfriend ask me what's wrong, I lie, & say, "Nothing", because it's been two months already, shouldn't I be like, over the fact that my best friend died without giving me any notice?

So I blink back tears in a Borders that closes in nine days, until we get into the car. And in the dark, pretending that I'm watching the cars pass me by, I cry. I cry as hard as I cried the first time I really got my heart broken. I cry & cry & cry, silently, so he won't notice, so he won't feel bad, so he won't ask what's wrong. Because if I say her name, I'll only cry harder.

I cry because it all feels so foreign, like walking into the wrong classroom my freshman year of college, only I'm not sure where to exit. No, that's not quite right. It feels as foreign as being roused from a deep sleep by a phone call in my second language. At some point, I'll be able to cope with the conversation, but it will never feel right. I will always feel as if I'm missing something, as if she's about to bust through my front door & tell me it was all a joke, & wow, she got me good.

I swear a lot more now than I used to. If I smoked, I would probably do that. But I don't. So I swear & I eat too much chocolate & I've gotten subscriptions every magazine that sounds the slightest bit interesting & I should probably buy stock in Lush because it's my latest futile attempt at keeping my insomnia at bay.

But mostly, I feel so empty & so alone & at a loss for everything right about now.