Ive spent 18 years talking about my childhood letting anyone who will listen let me tell them that I have had enough of  being smothered by cupcake tulle dresses, planting watermelons that never grew, and wiht the divorce of my parents; the death of it all. I suppose its fitting we move on to the year I turned 17 and was a junior in highschool.   Although it was jsut last year I can honestly say I've done a lot of growing up, experimenting, and finding or losing even farther down the black hole who I am. Bear wiht me, for my story is the classic case of a coming of age tale, a couple years too late. Lets jsut say I didnt get my itch for rebellion until l was almost through with what most parents call the "difficult years". I had spent almsot all of my middle school years doing my homewrok and never shifting responibility. I was a classic straight edge daddy's girl. My dad thought he had been spared but when I discovered I had an affinity for sarcasm, having an opinion, and writing angry girl poetry, I realized I was jsut that; angry. THat anger was like cancer, it attacked every cell in me, took over, and multiplied to the point of it being terminoal. Maybe one of the various shrinks ive gone to could tell you I suffer the classic case of le enfant de négligence or in otherwords my parents ignored their misunderstood spawn. My current therapist tells me to pick my words carefully. That Maybe ignored is a strong word, and I should give the parentals some credit. They sent me to a private school, endulged me with entertainment and lavish silly compliments. I wanted all of it but more I wanted them to really see  what I ahd to say. I had so mcuh to say through my poems and pictures that I felt baffled them. I ended up saying whatever I wanted in the end, but back then I didnt, I did my homework and baked myself into a cake iced with bitter frosting.  Sure my dad was a good sport about the whole thing and fed me ice cream till I became an angry overweight 13 year old. He has always been his work but thats another tragedy his and never to be my own. God looking back on it all, I really hated the world, or everyone in my own little world. My mother saw to it that I felt "supported" with her kind words of assurance, yet her need to publize to me her marital problems, made her more of a nusence than a mother. How many times can a kid hear that her father is fucked up and has a small dick? It was frankly background noise to me, I learned not to tune into that station, I sort of just turned up my own thoguhts and left them spinning till theyd come out in random tantrums. Ive always been melodramatic, finding comfort in crying in closets, slamming doors, or binge eating. But more importantly chanelling it all into my art, my pictures and words that are havily sexually conotated and have so much to say. I think I found my true calling after me and her had a fight and she tried to take me to the hospital. She said somethign was wrong with me, physically nothing, but I rember someone calling her on her cellphone as she was screaming and her answering it saying "my daughters sik very sick". All I could do was laugh, the crazy bitch wanted to take me to the hospital for actign out, and I was the one that needed meds. I dont think she ever grew out of throwing tantrums, actually she still has them quite frequently, and I still refuse to give her my symphathys. Poor robert (my little brother), hes a lot sweeter than I am, I think its becasue he doesnt truly know that everyone has two faces. So I went to my room and  I began to write. But dont get me wrong college admissons dude, I dont blame her, she's always felt the need to publize her problems, get everyones sympathys. Poor Michelle, her mother cut her hair off, fed her hamburger helper, and hated her, I guess she did not know how to handle telling her friends that her marrige was over. But I think the real problme shes always had with me is that Ive always been able to see right through her. Its kind of like a gift, one I want to share through writing, photography, and video, basically any medium that will help me express what I can see that you mgiht not have thought of. 

When I was 17 I decided that I knew who I wanted to be. SO I took pictures, pictures of the world, of myself set in that world, dressed in clothes I had always been to modest to wear. I wrote, everything I felt, that I secretly still loved her even though she had let me down. She had given up on me long after I had given up on her. But still I somehow thought she was the bad one. She had caved first, she was the weaker one, and I truly belived the more I said to hurt her the more she wanted my approval. The more pain I caused her, the better I felt, and as sadistic as that is even telling a piece a paper how much I hated her relieved much of my frustration. 

A couple of months ago, I found some of my old notebooks, they looked like someone had clawed at them. I rember stabbign them with pens, throwing them against my annoying bubblegum pink bedroom walls, and staining them with blue and black ink as wel as creating a trail of tears. The paper soaked up everything, my thoughts, tears, rage, stupidity, hopes, dreams, anything and everything it went from a blank slate to a page full of my being. I could close it, when I was sick of myself, and I could pick it up and laugh about how worked up I had been that day over nothing. I still write, maybe not as much as I used to, but when I say I truly grew up the year I started writing Its so evident, you can see it through my notebooks. Its documented evidence, every poem, entry, prose, or scribble all mesh togehter forming who I am today. The writing evolves every time I turn the page of this book, of my first black notebook wiht all its tears and holes, and everytime I find something else to write about. I grow when I write, I find myself splattered allover the page again and again, sometimes sick of the same thoughts sometimes overwhelmed with them.  I cant help associate the love I have for writing with the confusion I felt. Everyone grows up, some late bloomers, some prepubesent. But I grew up the day I picked up a pen and decided I couldnt tell anyone how I felt. I couldnt explain it to anyone. I realized the only place where the girl that I had become and continue to become would allow her thoguhts to come pouring out and reside unjudged was the blank slate that was the first page of my notebook, and whenever I needed a new start there was always the comfort of knowing I could always turn the page.