Joe had a headache. This way, he was still Joe, but removed. Fantastic. I enjoyed every moment of it. I walked between buildings because I had no place else to go, and there was Joe. Topless, of course, smoking. I sat across the street from him, facing him, quietly. “What’s wrong?” “ . . . Nothing.” Other people came, a lot of them came. Joe was laying down on the sidewalk in a girls off the shoulder, cap-sleeve top that was dark brown. Our friends said if they didn’t know him, they would think he was homeless. A train sounded. “You missed your train!” “Ahah!” “I’ll get it next year!” “Haaaaahaha!” I laid on the curb and grass while Matt talked about X-Files from the heavens. Joe parked his back and the back of his legs and head behind me in the grass. Somebody kept saying things I had no response for, so I closed my eyes and said “Anorexia works wonders buddy,” and somebody said, “I called it!” and then nobody kept saying too many of the same things for me to have no response over. I reached over myself and Joe said I was good at massaging his head, until I gave up. Sarina said my name and came and I got up because it was finally time for us to know that I, also, like shoegaze. It was nice because I always feel awkward around Sarina, and I didn’t then. She had helped me cross the street earlier to pee in a Dunkin Donuts bathroom that had no lock. She said that people didn’t want to hit me, just think of it this way, because their car insurance would explode. Andrew’s forest green thermal looked perfect with his skin. A guy tried to sell Joe crack; Joe befriended him, and then the guy was jumpy around anyone who came near, to chat with Joe. Joe never gets shot. Everyone says that Joe is going to get shot one day. I think that he won’t, though. So I’ll shoot him.

Meat. Meat meat meat meat. You don't understand; Meat. Meat, meat.

*

I made a joke about Matt's brother playing near the sandals in Burlington Coat Factory, but Michael did play at a place that is in Patchogue named Sandals, in a red Constatines shirt.

*

A poor black man walked up to our table outside. Joe had a bright shittily, funnily printed fleece scarf tied around his head like a turban, a folded piece of half a pizza, and a Yoo-hoo can like Tyler. The homeless guy was drawn to Joe, and Joe was overly accomidating, as he's wont to be for that kind of shit. The guy asked Joe what his name was, and Joe stood up to shake the guy's hand over Andrew, saying "Joe Lentini!" The guy was very filthy and his eyes kept flying, and he said, "Santini! My name's Nixon." Joe said, "Nixon!" Nixon asked for a cigarette. Joe gave him a cigarette and I gave him a cigarette too because I wanted to play with Nixon too even though he wouldn't pay attention to me. Nixon said Joe was like him, as a compliment. Joe took it jovially. Nixon asked if we had a dollar. We mostly said "No," in a sorry way, and Tyler gave him two quarters over me. Nixon said he wasn't greedy, he just wanted a little money. We said we understood. Tyler accidentally said "You should go get some pizza." Nixon asked for two dollars for pizza. Joe said, "You can have a couple bites of mine, man." Nixon took Joe's pizza and walked away, and then walked awayy. Joe waited a moment to show his flusteredness. "Nixon took my pizza! I said he could have a couple bites, not the whole thing!"

*
Joe said he was just so happy for the moments Michael was playing. He meant it. He sat still, and he watched.

*

Matt told me that between songs Steve and Michael and probably their girls were talking about me while Joe and I were outside smoking. Matt told me that they said, "I've finally seen the wig girl!" So then I laughed like a little girl to Matt and put my hands in front of my face.


*

Peter, the oldest brother, was there, looking at cars in the newspaper. Joe was fascinated with how he never noticed that Matt resembles Peter with darker hair. I watched their mother watching Michael play and sing until it almost made me cry as much as it could do that.

*
Leaving, Andrew in the passenger seat, Matt said, "You know what Steve said about you? Steve said you have such a natural beauty. He said that, she has such a natural beauty, she has a natural beauty."

*
I knew Steve had snuck peeks at me. After the first few, secretly, I wondered if I did know what he thought, and I tried to intensify the spirit of the room, somehow imaginable, with things that make up but aren't facial expressions, and things that happen between the only amount of frames that the brain can cognate.

*
So what Matt said tore me, so I said, "Steve should see all the inches of make-up I've put on." Matt and Andrew tried to tell me otherwise, though I damn well knew otherwise of course, and tried to tell me to just take a damn compliment.

*But I couldn't take it because I had taken it in advance.

SO I pretended to. It made the boys act happy.

*

For the rest of the night in a way not veiled we all talked about how we love each other. Unabashed. Hugely, safely. Insanely. We let it out, and out, out out out outin in in in inin innininin

I think my athletic popular young neighbor with the disgusting father is outside with a friend listening to So Much For The Afterglow, or whatever that cd was called. And it's very refreshing, in the Finally, kid kind of way. Finally, kid. Finally.

Yum.

I keep almost crying because I have my period, I have eaten enough calories for my week these past two days, and I forgot to put on a shirt under this sweatshirt, but mostly because although I love Dan's parents, on Tuesday Dan told me that his father has said about me that I am smart. Emily said everyone's worried about me, and that makes me callous, but I still keep almost crying due to Dan's father.

I neglected Dan again today. I had to deliriously sleep.

My goal in life is to fall into a great amount of Pria Carb Select bars, so that I can eat three a day until my heart kills itself or they have disappeared. The only other things I think about are Life, How Bad My Skin Is, My Old Loyalties, and a little bit of etc. that I'd say is necessary. But, anyway. The food. These bars are sold in boxes of fifteen bars, but apparently within twenty-five miles of me, no one is selling boxes. That means that I will have to buy single ones. Three times seven is twenty-one. I hope. Twenty-one is good for a week. I don't want the crunchy ones. I want the other ones. At least I would be able to remember what I ate if what I ate was so predictable. And these are cooler than chocolate bars because they have some of the best words in the world on the back. Take for example "Manganese Sulfate." I. did. a. Manganese. report. in. high. school !

[	Настроение	|	oh?, ; ,?	]
[	Музыка	|	kaldak-khamar	]

( i didn't know )


















( you use anything )

Three blankets, fleas, and I lay on my iPod headphones all day and night. This way, the thugs don't see them and I never get mp3 player jumped. I took the last three sugar cookies; 140, 140, 140; to my room where I saw that I had knotted all my garbage bags, so I found a nearby Lord & Taylor bag full of Chanel recepticles and a burger that must be months old. It didn't disgust me that much. I added the cookies and put the bag back next to the garbage bags on my piles of clothes. The bags protect my iPod too. Because. They have nothing else to do.

I left the cookie bag torn and sprawled on the kitchen table under a wet peppermint tea bag, near the tub of a mug it came from. By that, I left the cottage cheese containers I ate from at four in the morning. I took a peanut butter and a jelly out of refrigerator, Wonder bread off the rack, a paper plate, a stained butter knife, and made a thick sandwich. I wiped the knife on the plate, and cut the sandwich into four quadrants. The desired mess achieved, I stacked the slices in my hand and put them in the Lord & Taylor bag, leaving the plate on the table with everything out. I ate some of my yogurt that has 6 bacterias, and left that out too. People can be too deceived and pissed off to worry about you.

I can't remember if I did it with anything else. I do it all the time.

My fleas hardly ever bite my face because it's caked with benzoyl peroxide. Emily's jeans are tucked into my mismatched black dress socks, but perhaps I still get bit in the legs. My mood is happy. Almost everyone is too stupid to everbelieve me.

When I stand, my ankles hurt. It's been like this for a while, but lately with this consistency it's getting annoying and almost boring. BUT IT HURTS SO MUCH if I sit on the shower floor and then stand. Which ought to inspire me to aspire to be one of those people who doesn't sit in the shower stall . . . at all!, but won't. And it sucks because what do you do? You go through your brain and try to blame yourself because you know you're to blame and you just can't you know you just can't remember the term for what's happening and maybe because it's uncool so you don't want to, so good, but in the mean time you've got to stand on ankles that feel really weird and unpleasant while so does your sympathetic head for the moment. Hopeless. So I vow to never stand up again, I guess. Rad. Come and get me! From 4 1/2 feet away!!

Sitting alone in a lot of the kind of people I would pray are worthless, this morning. Yesterday morning. The garbages stank, I assumed the stench was me. I tried to call Gertrude to see if I stank in her car during the ride to school, since I couldn't recall doing that, but the phone service message mentioned her phone being off & nothing else, nothing about the smell. Fuckers, fuckers, god God admit they're fuckers, for me, please, god. Fuckers fuckers gross terrible horrifying with stingers. I told a fucker I stank & he said he couldn't smell such. Tried to smoke the fuckers out with miniature cigarettes--tried to smoke the odor out with minuscule cigarettes. While I shifted place, that Asian fool & 2 of his cronies eyed me. He worded me. I played jovial. His friend wanted cigarettes. I as usual wasn't in the mood to be living, so I shared. The Asian fool asked me if I wanted his stupid ugly necklace. Inner monologue: RETARD NO. "Yes," I said. He gave me his stupid ugly fucking shark tooth in hemp with those fucking white curled up piss me off shells necklace, & I put it on before he could assist me. Thanks. Want a bookmark? He said he read a lot. Bull shit you read a lot. None of you here have any fucking idea what read a lot means. I gave him my prized bookmark, worth a lot more than that fucking necklace. My mother bought it for me. It was my favorite colors. It was metal & heavy & beautiful, with a magnet. It was made by a jewelry company. I knew it would give me pain to give it away to absolutely no one but annoyingness for no goddamn reason. & I did. & more. I always do.
I have to learn the hard way, as much as possible.
I gave a good handjob today with my left hand, but . . . my bookmark : ( , my bookmark : ( , my bookmark : (.
= Excellence Enough

My cousin sent me a text message that said "CAFE" while I was alone talking to one of my ugly new strangers. When precious time was over and I got to the cafeteria, I found her wedged in backwards under Rockabilly Goth. I didn't say anything and due to the nature of our blood and the cafeteria she didn't raise her eyes from her French dittos until I began to sit. She uncomplimented her handwriting I complimented, shut her dittos in her text, pulled a bite off her crumb cake, put it in her mouth and said, "Do you want this? of course you don't," as she shut the wrapper around the remainder. I said that I didn't and told her about the cheesecake I ate the day before. "Was it one of those mini ones?" " . . . No. Aren't all cheesecakes are smaller than other cakes? But it was a normal for a cheesecake, like this." --Sign language. "Was it from the factory?" "I don't know. It might have been. I think so."

She said at her father's surprise party at the restaurant my father said he was worried about me. And she said that she said that he should be. She also said that her mom promised and would not tell my parents that I stopped going to all of my classes.
I don't appreciate that this sap is compelled to tell everyone either that I'm anorexic or that I'm not going to any of my classes. She could tell everyone something else instead, like that I'm brilliant, but, oh yeah, she's blind to that.
She ended up naming almost all of our conversational aunts and uncles in a written, numbered list. She knows many more of their names than I do, the same way she knows more constellations. I hadn't known that one of our cousins is our age and has Down's Syndrome, that my half sister is named not just "Mary," but "Mary Rose," or that everyone describes our uncle who is married to the black woman who is related to Donna Summer or whoever, and his wife, as "Unattractive but so nice and funny I'll show you pictures from the wedding." I told her dad punched me in the jaw.

I just rolled onto my side from laying on my back, reading my laptop. The pain from the pressure of a bone of my ass leaving the space it was in on a thick seam of my jeans made me inhale with a hiss and bite my teeth. It hurts to lay down, on a mattress. It hurts to sit. There is no comfort. There are no homes. Sometimes I forget how to understand that there is silence. But I know something. I still know something. My something, I know I know it. On and off--the way that is best. I know what I'm doing. I know what other people don't see. I always did. It's not my fault. It's my redemption.

Hot Topic, Dan insulting the Honk If You Morrissey bumper sticker. I was holding my duck that was hard to produce because it was made with so many different colors that he won. Two ravegoth girls loitered in front of me, that's illegal, & 1 said Hi like I knew her. I looked at her face and knew I couldn't tell if I ever knew her. I said Hi, how are you? They replied and stood there. I said, "Yeah, I have a duck." They acknowledged my duck. I said, "It's name is Jake." They said, "Jake." I said, "Jake the drake. I didn't give it the name."
Dan saw them again later in the mall, leading me to see their baggy black backs from far away. We still had no idea who they were.
Mercy.

1:00 PM YESTERDAY

Dan: I ate a dog.
Dan: Treat once.
Nicolle: (Laughing a little) You ate a dog there buddy, hunh?
Kevin: (Laughing a little too)
Dan: (Laughing a little too) I was going to say biscuit. But it wasn't a biscuit, it was a treat.
Kevin: Why?
Dan: I thought it was a cookie. It was one of those, black and white you know chocolate on one half and vanilla on the other. But I bit the vanilla part, and it tasted like vanilla and meat.
Nicolle: (Laughing)
Kevin: (Laughing and in his eyes) You said you ate a dog.
Nicolle: (Laughing in my eyes too) Yeah, you space your words out nice.
Kevin: Did you throw up?
Dan: I almost did. I wanted to. But then I made an apple, and ate it and a [SOMETHING].
Nicolle: (Laughing moderately in my eyes) You made an apple?
Kevin: (Laughing in his eyes again too) You made an apple? That's a skill. I can't do that.
Dan: (Smiling standing straight, looking down with undetectable little inward-laugh breaths)
Kevin: (Shrugging) So you ate a dog and made an apple.
Dan: (Nodding smiling looking at the ground)

My body feels meekly euphoric today. It's cool. Fetal/stretchy position in a pretty, filthy, pink blanket, on an uncovered mattress that's turning creamy colored; these two things matching your favorite $7 H&M underwear. That's cool. Looking like milk, with a pinkish nose & lips, and then kinks of red hair. Okay, thanks, whowhatever, kind of thanks. Kind of thanks.

A medicine measure cup of pistachios. That's cool. Baxter's fur glistening in the bathroom being a millimeter less red-lit than Dan's. Dad on the couch watching Montel Williams, who likes grass and has a nice skin color, not too loud. 3 New Voicemails on my phone, being Saved For Better Days. Grab bag.

These days are Taurus days. Matt & Dan are Tauruses. I saw Matt yesterday, but I didn't know. He was far away & wearing a big black Interpol sweatshirt, which is different from his usual: blazer, maybe, t-shirt, etc. But I saw the red beanie, and looked, but then I decided it wasn't him, since he was just sitting there on a little peak watching me look, & not walking to me animated & saying "Hey man," or "Awesome," or "Fierce," or "Any new albums, Nickybones?" So I just waited for Dan to come out, while I smiled at Rachael & Mack-Brian. Dan & I were so cold. Everyone might have been cold. Me especially I was cold. I stood there like I was cold.

I don't think I touched anyone. Dan was standing on one leg with his arms in the air over his black shirt with seams that zipped up all the way to the top of his hood, doing that martial arts or whatever stance. Then Matt came, saying those things I mentioned before. I saw he was wearing a big sweatshirt. Impermeable brown eyes, not that I can ever tell what anyone is thinking through their eyes anyway. He asked Dan if he was cold, hugged him, & things so much better than me like that. To Dan he said, "New pants, man?" Gap yes! I mostly looked down & said "Cold." They looked up & talked. Dan zipped his head up in his hood, which then points funny at the top, put his glasses over the hood, & Matt laughed.

They have more & more gentile strengths than me.

Once I saw a woman, & once I saw another woman.

One of the women I saw, I saw her outside a 7-11, when I was around thirteen. My brother was in the passenger seat, I was in the back, on the right side, & mother was driving past the outer curb into the 7-11 parking lot. On the sidewalk of this outer curb, walking in the direction of me, was a woman. She was wearing a denim mini skirt, & she was very tall. She was wearing cowboy boots. Her hair was long & dark brown. There was so much room around her calves, in her cowboy boots. Her thighs above her knees were so much tinier than her calves. So much. She looked at nothing. She wasn't there. I was awed.

The other woman I saw, I saw when I was around fifteen. I was walking around K-Mart behind my mother & brother. There was a woman with a cart & a baby boy in the cart. The skin of this woman was perfectly white. She was wearing a slouching white tanktop, braless. And also her hair, perfectly platinum, dyed that way. She looked like a worn, worn star. She looked at me. I was assured.

I'll always remember these women. Of course I don't know why.

In the mall, the thin, short-haired girl in combat boots & a babydoll shirt that said The Faint underneath an olive boho sundress, walked to me while I was still undecided & optimistic about whether or not I liked her outfit. "Excuse me. You go to Suffolk, don't you?" "Yes." "I love your look." " . . . Thanks. I was just about to mention yours, actually." "I go to Suffolk too & I've seen you around & I just wanted to say I love the way you dress." "Hah, Thanks. Heh." "Have you ever seen, that movie, Benny & June?" No. " . . . Uh . . . Yes." She told me that Dan, who was standing a few steps behind me, & I, reminded her of Benny & June. I laughed. That always works. Dan did too. "Have you ever considered modelling?" "Uh." "?" "Mm. Not that I know of?" She looked at still silent Dan. "Well, would you consider modelling?" "Uh." "?" "Uh. Uh . . . Mmmm?" I looked at Dan & laughed & looked for a clue of what to say. "Why not?" "Uhmm . . . because, . . . -- . . . -- !" "You're beautiful, & you're unique, would the both of you?" O, O Ugh Jesus Christ shut the fuck up & leave me alone mate you're hurting me. I looked at Dan. I wanted to cry. I smiled & squirmed. He smiled & shrugged. We followed the chick. To the little one-maybe-potentially-bearable-older-woman inhabited square shop that she had come from.

you matted a poster of lou barlow behind a screen
& glued it in a wheel barrow, fluted the brim,
& anchored it on your wall where there was no beam
because it rhymed
as they screamed
you used to ride a balance beam
& bounce your scary red lipids on a trampoline. for the team
& you painted your wooden balance beam
with watercolors, you sollubled your name
on a knot, in green
as they screamed they screamed
& you colored your illegally photocopied
music class music
behind the bars
as you now vomit behind bars
& after your falling wheel barrow took the wall
through your g5 screen
you considered taking a picture
but your shutter clicker was still missing
you considered drafting a dream
but screened more screams
matting a royal truxx poster
in seventy paper cups

Eating like hell, on purpose. You want me to eat, mom? I've thrown out your dark chocolate, and cookies, but I'll eat. I'll eat all your donuts. 600 calories. It's nothing I can't fix this week, you stupid bitch. I hope you're happy to disturb your daughter so. Actually I can't do 600, I can do 300. So I've done that. Thanks for the discomfort. Thanks for the discomfort. I can feel it on me. Thanks for the fear. Like life isn't hard enough the way I set it. Thanks for your fear. Thanks I'm I don't know how I am, now. Now I know that even less, however I could. Thanks I hate you. I hate you. Why did I listen to you? Why do you have that voice? I feel terrible. I don't feel good. And I have to act calm. So scary, to have even chaotic distractions. I hate you. I ate a lot today. So much, earlier. For Emily's parents, for you, for the sake of wonder. I fucking hate you I hate you you should have left me alone. I hate you. I hate you, I hate you, come Monday. Come week come by faster. Fast now fast fast come fast go by without me beside me, faster

I won't finish that story. It was headed to the end of itself, though, & at the end, Frank said his Byes. In the middle of meeting Frank, he had mentioned to Kevin being horrible with names, while Dan was inside getting Kevin a soda. So, the end. At the end, Frank said Kevin, right? bye. It's Dan, yeah? bye. Then, for me, he said, "I already know your name is Nicolle, someone introduced us."

Goddamn.

After he left, Dan said, "He was cool. Until he knew your name." These people at this school remembering my shit while I've forgotten theirs & believe the remembrance market is mine. I told Dan I was trying to remember who could have introduced us. He said probably Michelle did it, & I agreed & said maybe Kameel. Goddamn my ass sucks. Something had also happened about wristmarks.