Till the clouds clear

Ever get the feeling that everything's closing in on you, and you're only just managing to outrun the coming storm?

I don't know who my friends are. I don't know how long I haven't known them. And what's even scarier is that they don't know me. If I committed suicide tonight not one of them would be able to tell anybody why - and there would be a reason. There always is, with me.

I'm always going out of my way to make them happy, but the favour's never returned. I'm seriously considering just moving groups or something. The one I'm with seems great on the outside. Underneath, there are cracks in the foundations. In the people.

Like Erin. On MSN or texting or whatever, she pretends everything is okay. Then she takes it out on everyone else. Nicolina is the prettiest girl I know and yet she sees herself as ugly. Elenn says she's fair but what's that quote from Shakespeare - fair is foul and foul is fair. Beware of something nasty pretending to be something nice.

I can't pretend like I can ignore it anymore either. I honestly don't know how to get myself out of this one. Probably because I didn't realise how caught up I was until I was already falling.

And what bugs me more? They don't know. They've forgotten. When Josh died, I distinctly remember hearing "I'll never take life for granted again." And yet, that's exactly what's happening. Everyone seems to have forgotten he was ever there, except Christy and Libby and Riz and me. I'm not sure Riz remembers either. She hasn't said anything. But you never know with her. She's my best friend, but I don't feel like I know her that well.

I don't feel like she knows me that well.

[All I am
For all you are
Cause what I need
And what I believe
Are worlds apart]

Elenn was my best friend for the first fourteen years of my life. But recently I've realised that I can't live like she does, taking life one tiny careful step at a time. I want to leap and fly and I wanna try and touch the moon even if people say it's not possible, because you never know if you don't try, right?

I don't want to live in content. I want to look up at the sky and wonder. I never want to lose joy in watching a mouse, a bird, a cat, a dog. I never want to lose faith in living creatures. I don't want to lose who I am. I want to be able to watch a horse run and imagine its big strong heart pounding in my chest. I want to imagine being my dog, feeling rain slide off me and the world in black and white. I want to believe I can step as silently as a cat.

I want to believe that one day I'll stretch my wings and flap and fly and make the choice to come down, because I want to believe that despite everything I'll have something to live for.

[I look beyond the empty cross
Forgetting what my life has cost
So wipe away the crimson stains
Dulls the nail that still remains]

Someday it'd be nice to be able to believe in God. Right now I can't - there are too many things holding me back. My family, my studies, my teachers... some of my friends. I want to think 'yes, it's alright, it happened for a reason'. I want to be what Dad calls a lemming. If I'm a lemming and I throw myself off a cliff to die with the rest, at least I won't be alone.

[Take my world apart
take it now, take it now
And serve the ones that I despise
Speak the words I can't deny
Watch the world I used to love
Fall to dust and blown away]

And then, I'll die believing that there's a bright light at the end of the tunnel, and help is on the way.

the sensational crusader.