(in honour of it being 3 days until spring here is a journal entry from midwinter when I was pretty fucking sad)

Sunday. Woke sleepless and tender. Recently broke winter hibernation and went out three nights in a row. Half-drunk confessed to [redacted] at a bus stop at 3am that I’m pretty fucking sad but it’s okay because sometimes I’m not and I’m not quite sure what to make of it but I know it’ll be alright come spring. I digress. Got in late, woke early. That’s always the way. No equilibrium here. Too much to do. Like [redacted] always said, never enough hours in the day. Drew a bath. Drank my tea scalding hot. Boiled my innards. Was ten minutes late to church. Took the host on my tongue which is a big deal for me because I am a hypochondriac freak at the best of times and have always taken it in my hands. I like to feel the weight of the flesh of Christ in my own palm before I let it melt on my own tongue. Consecrate myself. Bless myself. Forgive myself. Save myself. I've always been a hands-on girl. Maybe a little too independent. I digress. Priest put the host on my tongue and I swear to God I could taste it. Love. I mean it, I felt the love spread from that wafer right through my veins. Static, from navel to nape. Cried in the pews and lingered for a while. Prayed for just about everybody I know because just about everybody I know isn’t doing so good, either. Tender times. Winter madness and all that. Walked in the rain to camp in a cafe because writing from various establishments is just about the only thing keeping me warm. Drank three cups of green tea and panicked from all the caffeine on an empty stomach. Well, empty if you don’t count communion. Girl sat to my right peeled a clementine and the smell bought me back to the floor of my shower in my old flat in west London where I would hide from my ex lover in the bathroom because I didn’t have the guts to tell him I was losing it. I’d take a clementine into the shower and sink down to my knees and peel it real slow, smell the citrus oil as the glands erupted against the skin of my fingers. I’d eat it segment by segment then wash away all that mess with the stream of the water which was washing me, too. Sometimes he’d find me in there, notice I was missing for a tad too long, strip off down to meat and bone and slip right in beside me. I’d cry a lot, back then, because I wasted all my words on my poems and my journals. Didn’t leave any words for myself. I’d be speechless come nightfall. Selectively mute. I did it a whole bunch as a kid, use all my words in one go, wring my brain dry like a wet tea towel on a story and then not speak for days. Everybody was always so worried about me. Mama told me from the other side of the world that the whole aphonic-clementine-on-shower-floor thing was called a nervous breakdown. I didn’t believe her. Still don’t. Still opt to believe that this is part of my creative process. I digress. Bad habit for that, I have. Digressing. The girl sat beside me in the cafe ate her clementine quick so the memory had slipped away by the time [redacted] arrived to keep me company. I told [redacted] I’d like to grow antlers as I drew shooting stars in my journal. I used to draw shooting stars in my school books when I was a kid. I liked stars and I liked dancing and I wanted the whole world to know my name. [Redacted] smiled and said antlers would suit me just great. I could tell [redacted] that I killed somebody and [redacted] would find a way to make me feel good about it, and if this winter doesn’t end soon, I just might. Kill somebody, that is. Not feel good about it. It’s hard to feel good about anything in this terrible cold. On that note - bus just arrived. Love always. Dakota.