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i have got to get out of here.

i have got to leave this job.

i have got to do something, do anything, because this is killing me. Killing.

i hate everyone in this room. i hate myself, for ridiculous reasons. for letting sally sue get to me. for not talking to my boss about it. for losing the cd i was supposed to have learned by tonight. for not having a handle on my thoughts, for being completely incapable of keeping anything sorted out in my head.

because i just don't care.

and it's funny that i hate myself for not caring. that the one emotion i can muster is the one that i desire the least.

i've been on the verge of tears since i walked in here this morning. i suppose that's an improvement. yesterday i was too far gone to even feel any sort of sorrow.

this is not what i wanted. this is not why i busted my ass being little miss model student. when i was a child, i never said that when i grew up, i wanted to be a soulless desk jockey slowly watching her life tick away in anguish. and that's what i've become.

the pain i feel upon entering this room is not to be believed.

i can't do this anymore.

i just can't.

and i have no choice, because there are no jobs out there for me, there are no jobs out there for anyone.

so what is to become of me? it's only a matter of time before i lose myself completely. i'm so close right now. i'm not even an approximation of what i used to be. i am not myself. i'm not even nothing.

not yet.

though i do find myself delving back into patterns i thought i'd abandoned when i turned sixteen, when i courted the business end of a lethal pharmaceutical cocktail, and upon changing my mind and purging the poison from my body started a whole new obsession, one which has been with me on and off ever since.

i carry scars on my legs from where i clawed myself open with my fingernails in an attempt to alleviate the pain, to give myself something physical to focus on so i could ignore the ache in my mind. the hatred. the belief that i was inferior, that i was not worthy of the attention that was metered out to me.

it takes longer with a guitar player's hands.

i pound hard things until my knuckles are bruised and bleeding, because something like me needs to be punished for what it is. for being so selfish, so stupid, so repulsive.

i'm not proud of these things.

there was a time when i didn't feel like this. there was a time when i felt that i was something special, that i was beautiful and witty and wise and wonderful.

but yesterday i found myself navigating a crowd by pretending i wasn't there, and i knew that the days of tearing through traffic with my head held high and belief and self-respect were gone. i'd stopped believing i was worth looking at. i have stopped believing that. and this fucking job, where i am marginalized and exploited and ignored, this job is not helping.

i don't know what ever will.

not any more.

i'm sorry if this sounds self-pitying, if this sounds hopelessly adolescent and melodramatic. i'm sorry. i just...i feel broken. i don't know if i'll ever find my way home, my way back to myself.