PART I: EVERYTHING IS SUCH A FREAKING PICNIC

I have to get away from here.
This place is a prison

and I’m not saying that

because they won’t let me stay out

later than two in the morning.

I miss my sister.

I miss my old life.

I miss feeling alive.

I have to get out of here.

Jaywalking is the best.

Mostly because Donna and I

almost died trying to get

across the highway to McDonald’s

to get breakfast.

We were almost flattened

by two eighteen wheelers.

But we still manage to snap pictures of us

and send them to our sisters

waiting three hours away.

I hold onto the egg McMuffin

like it’s gold.

A year ago,

I would not have

done this.

A year ago,

I wouldn’t have

wanted breakfast.

I would have said

I wasn’t hungry.

Bulimia is a bitch.

I wonder what people

I know would think

if they knew I am/have been:

bulimic,

depressed,

having anxiety attacks,

burning myself,

and picking at my thumbs.

Crazy.

Not even my sisters know

and I trust them

with everything I have.
 

Last night I met a guy

in the bus station.

I sat with him for two hours

and talked endlessly on the bus ride.

I let him hold me,

nothing more than that.

Even though I told my sister differently.

I don’t want her to worry about me.

She does that a lot.

But I said goodbye to him

in the end.

To be held

in a crowded place

and then let go is freeing.

No strings attached.

No feelings at stake.

Except I feel guilty.

Michael is at home

and I feel like

I’ve done something wrong.

I don’t tell all of this to Donna though.

We chat over

making fun of the crazy people

in the Montgomery bus station.

There’s this person

and we can’t tell if it’s a man or a woman.

They never put any money in the pay phone,

but talk endlessly to no one.

I think they’re schizophrenic.

Plus, they snatch their jeans

and walk like a pimp.

I hate times like this,

not knowing whether

someone is a man or a woman.

I think I will call them

tranny-phone-schizo. 

I am very cautious of them

and so is Donna.

And we stick together

because we look like the only sane people

besides Will from Cornell.

He’s our age too.

He is gorgeous and nice.

We talk in the bus line

about how ridiculous all of this is

and make fun of the incessant infomercials

playing on the only television

that keep replaying

over

and

over.