"you're on your own, kid."

you figure these words would come from some unlikely father-figure in some movie, some drunk who knows the mistakes that he has made have hurt you more than all the good he's done. you wouldn't expect them to come from your own father on the way back home from your shrink. you wouldn't expect them to be filled with apathy and anger and bitterness because of the night before.

but they are. that's where they're from. it's over, now, i hope, but just because we aren't fighting anymore doesn't change what was said and what was done about it. it doesn't change what wasn't said and it doesn't change what wasn't done. 

it doesn't change the fact that in the driver's seat of my father's car, the place i gave my father all my trust, was the exact same place he broke it. almost exactly twenty-four hours later, on almost the exact same way home, he just broke it. 

and then on my roof he tried to fix it. i guess i sort of fanned the dying flames. "the tiny little flickers that were frail." 

i just got so tired of holding things back from him. i got so used to receiving words from him that i finally just couldn't take any more of it and exploded with things i never had the courage to say. i don't really regret any of them now. maybe i will later, but i don't right now. i just feel so betrayed and hurt, still, that i just don't. 

you just figure because you're his daughter, that means something. that it's sort of important. but when you ask him about it, you get: "i guess that's important, too."

i guess.

blackouts

ah, late night bus trips to oakland. hopping on the 51 and then getting a phone call on your way that says the dude's house you're going to just lost all its power... and so did the entire neighborhood. and when you get close enough to see, all you can make out is a couple street signs against a whole lot of black.

still, it was lovely. just chillin with some candles and having a couple beers. wondering what everyone else was doing without any lights. 

it's funny, the difference what you see makes. it's funny how there's barely any difference at all. i don't mind the dark. sometimes i wake up and can't go back to sleep, so i just walk around. i don't turn anything on, i just wander. god knows my house is big enough for it, but you can't see anything so you can just picture it smaller. without all the space between the floor and the ceiling. alameda should have some more blackouts. 

i forget, sometimes, about counting sheep. i did it a couple times when i was little, but then i forgot all about it. little white sheep hopping over a fence... jumping over broken fenceposts at night time and bounding off into some field...

i'm tiiiiired.

"spitzin"

means i say what i want and never read it over again.

i hate the place i live. it doesn't even hurt anymore to leave it.
but i'm still really depressed all the time, and i don't even know why.

i used to write a lot of poems. i used to write them waaaaay more than anything else. i wouldn't write anything unless it rhymed, but then i started realizing how shitty a lot of them were.
so then i started doing some dialogue stuff that i actually liked. i did a couple stories, but now it's mostly this. just absent-minded talking about stuff no one even cares about.
i don't even care about this. but i do it because if i don't, i end up feeling worse than i did when i started. i spit because i have to. because if i don't, i wouldn't really know what to do with myself.
i can't write music. i can't write decent poems anymore, and inspiration is so hard to come by now, i'd practically sell myself for it. i miss writing things that mean something, but winter is coming, so i'll be even more depressed and i'll have lots of things to say. lots of things to hide under metaphors and strings of words so cloudy, i could hang them over my windows and they would block out all the light.

i don't know what i'm doing tonight, but i know that tomorrow is wednesday, and i'm going to try not to come directly home after school, and i'm going to try and wake up early so i'm not rushing in the shower. i savor that. the water is so forgiving.

but anyway, my name is lily spitz and that is what i do. i'm spitzin'. i love it.

i'm starting over

just a little bit.
today was good, but for some reason, i ended up sad. maybe it was all the grey. maybe it was because this is my last year, here, and i want it to be okay, but looking back, i'm just so skeptical. most of me thinks it's not.

i'm trying to fix what i can, and leave behind what i need to. some parts of your life, you just have to let go. it isn't because they make you unhappy, because sometimes those things are important. sometimes you have to look back and realize which of the things in your past have hurt you the most. you have to have those things so you learn not to let them hurt anymore, and you have to have those things so you learn not to do them over again.
but some things, you just have to leave. you just have to set them down and keep going.
i'm trying, but it's hard. and it seems sort of like, the harder i try, the harder it gets. and maybe that's the way it's supposed to be, but maybe it's not. i guess if everything happens for a reason, i should just not question it. i guess.

part of me keeps telling myself that it's going to be okay, in the end. when it's over, i can look back and be happy with the things that i've done. i can. and i want to. but it isn't easy. the most important things in your life are never, ever easy. and if you make a mistake and lose them, you still have to learn to keep going. you have to figure out whether your mistakes are worth carrying along with you, or just worth letting go. and if all they're worth is you opening your hand and dropping them to the floor, then just let them. it sounds a whole lot easier than it is,
i know...

so i'm unusually unhappy, but this isn't unusual. i just get upset, sometimes, and sometimes i don't know why. i think i do tonight, though.
so i'm trying to fix it. and i'm only trying not to fail.