Sword Swallower
<<2003-02-05 - 5:37 p.m.>>

Wouldn't it be fun if I issued an open invitation to flame me?

I ate about 2/3 of a pint of ice cream and I feel flat and dead inside. Flat, flat, flat. A determined nothing settled inside me.

This is not a good time—I have rather a lot of schoolwork right now.

In therapy this morning, I pulled against Zibby as she tried to get me to look at the prospect of being angry. At what being angry feels like. At what it makes me feel.

It makes me feel like I'm breaking apart.

I get angry and before I've even had time to realize that I'm angry, I fall on my sword—or, rather, swallow it.

I remember telling my mother that a long time ago, it would have been okay to release my anger—like it's pretty much okay to hit someone with a pillow. But even by the time I said this, which was two years ago or more, it was a knife.

Think what it must be now. Think of it slicing me up from the inside.

And I got angry this morning—just a little angry, just intellectually angry, really—and I felt self-hatred flare up in my stomach like bile. It turned me into a groveling, pathetic liar.

(See? I can still do it. I can still hate myself.)

I got so confused during the therapy session. Usually I've got some idea of the direction in which I'd like to progress, both in the session and personally. But today I didn't know which way was up. I was angry at Zibby for making me go where I didn't want to go, and all I could do was cry about it (serious crying, with rasping and a running nose) and hate myself with a small, sick flame.

And I ate ice cream and my Tai Chi class was cancelled.

And it fucking hurts.

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