Journal, Bellingham, Washington, 1985 (retrieved from the bottom of an old box)

...the pulsing of blood behind my eyes. I hope I'll be attacked on the way home. Hospitals are always warm: I hate the cold. It gets in my bones and slowly cracks them, one by one, departing only for a few weeks in the summer, giving me hardly enough time to heal. I am never attacked. Instead, I continue home, tears streaming down my face, trying to focus my eyes on the walk in front of me. I'm afraid to look up--hallucinations are all too common these days. No, instead, I walk, repeatedly asking myself my name, so that I won't forget it. This is a small thread of sanity. I revel in the fact that I know my own name. Across the square, I'm sure I will not make it home. My backpack won't stay on my shoulder, and my shoe is untied. I bend to tie it, wanting to crawl behind the cold, concrete trash can to cry. But I refuse to do so in public. I refuse to let them see what an outcast I really am. I am forced to walk the rest of the way home. Praying my roommate isn't home, I smile and say hello to my neighbor. I hate her, but am too weak to say so. If my roommate is home, well, I become human again. she doesn't know about the pile of leaves under my bed, the smoke in my eyes. I'm a real person now, and will be as long as she is there. But, of course, she's not, she never is home. And as I lock the door behind me, I become a disease, a monster, a ghost escaped from hell. Those tears can't be described. Besides, no one really wants to know what it's like to cry until you vomit. but, for me, it's reality. What do I cry about? I've looked at my clock, and I know that in ten hours, I will have to be awake, I will have to try again. I have to STAY AWAKE. I'm on the floor now, crying so hard I can't move. I can't face tomorrow, knowing I have to get out of bed. I promise myself to buy a rake.