I have been nothing short of a bore. I spend my days sat with my back to a green painted wall, phasing in and out, or lying on boyfriend's bed and smoking his cigarettes, secretly dying inside every second more that he ignores me. I've been so predictable, missing him when we're apart and still detesting his very being every time I find myself awake and alone at four in the morning, him with his back to me again. Again again again. How did I think that it could be any different? I'm in my final year at college, I don't know how I made it here. But I have, and obviously I've managed to do something right. So I've decided I'll shoot those goddamned self-portraits I've been considering for the past six years now. I figure I get to talk about body image, that somehow I have more of a right than the others because I used to weigh 250lbs of flesh and fat and bone and it was people just like them that used to hurl abuse about me from when I was just three years old, punches and kicks too - just for good measure. I keep telling myself that they're all phonies so that I can justify my lack of interest and interaction with life. Cue flashback of me crying in the bathroom and asking my mother what was so different about me compared to the others. I'm glad I'm different, I'm so, so grateful but I still don't feel like all too good a person. I visited best friend two nights ago (or only friend I really have left, your choice) and we talked a few hours. We failed at lighting the fire because as we were growing up, while others were learning to complete the simplest of tasks, we were both hiding beneath blanket skies, sometimes coming out for air and checking out the aftermath of our latest suicide attempts. Somehow we're both still here and she was able to tell me about how she prayed for a friend like me when she was really young so that she could have somebody that might just understand. She blames herself for how I am, I suppose, but if it's her fault or not, depression is my only other friend. She told me of her affair with the stranger who talked dirty, the way her mother never thought her dad would hit her but did anyway, how her boyfriend uses and abuses her. It's been seven years and still she goes back, and somehow I don't really blame her. We are wretched, wretched souls. I woke up in August as a nervous wreck, terrified beyond anything I have ever felt, knowing that ex was moving on with new girl and that I could never have him back. I fucked it up, it's my fault and he should get to be happy. Rewind to two nights ago, best friend sat on the sofa in front of the dying fire, telling me that ex has left new girl because he's still in love with me. I cried a little. Not those tears where everything's so desperate and scary that you can't breathe, but those ones like you've been living with a fear for so long that crying about it is almost an act of breathing. A silly little act of gentle resolve. I hardly even noticed 'til she apologised for upsetting me. She explained that she just doesn't want to be like us, attempting to move on but failing miserably. Going on being in love with each other almost years after we gave it all up (I still think about him every day). And so I understand why she'll go back to her failed relationship. More than anything, I want to go back to mine.