15th August 2003

Dearest Diary,

It’s the first day I am writing in you. Maybe I should make some kind of formal introduction about myself to you, so you would know me more. My name is Christine, I don’t like to go to school, no one understands me anyway. I like it when I can find some cans of alcohol in the house and go on an alcoholic spree. In short, I love the taste of beer and wine. I live in a deep dark world of my own, where no one cares and no one bothers. Life sucks like hell now. I am only eight. Is it wrong to feel this way? I have no best friends... Would you be my best friend?

Actually... I am very afraid of being alone. But I have been alone all these while, maybe it’s become a custom already. People don’t like me, they think I am a poseur who don’t want to talk to anyone because I look down on them. But it’s actually because I can’t pluck the courage to go near people. I am scared of people. I don’t even talk to my own parents.

They abandoned me when I was three anyway. They became drunkards, and were constantly smoking or injecting something called Heroine into themselves. They always try to make me take Heroine, but I always run before they do. Dear diary, do you know what’s Heroine? It seems to take away my parents’ senses. I am scared of talking to them just like I am scared of talking to any others.

Dear diary, I am really scared of my teachers too. They always try to convince me to go into some kind of counseling program and they like saying I am sick. I am not sick. I don’t have a face that’s pale green, I don’t sneeze and have a hot forehead, I don’t lie down and never want to stand up again. I am not sick, why can’t they understand? No one understands me. No one. NO ONE. Will you understand me, diary?

There are a few other things I need to cover before I go to sleep. Mummy is always beating me up when she’s drunk and daddy tried to strip me down once when he was high on drugs, I don’t know what was daddy trying to do, but he seemed very rough and aggressive, I managed to run away in the end. Mummy works in a factory that sells alcohol so that she gets free beer, and daddy works in a construction site, where there are always people who sells drugs at cheap prices.

Mummy always leaves a few dollars on the mantelpiece for me before she goes to work with daddy. I don’t want money, what I want is some love, can’t they understand? I am so tired of all these shit. Fuck life. What I want is just some warmth. They don’t understand, they don’t. I know it’s very wrong to swear at such a young age, diary, but I have no choice. This is how I express my feelings. I have never talked to anyone except myself. I don’t find the courage to look up into people’s faces and talk to them. I hate looking at their happy smiles.

Because… I have none. I live in a deep dark world of myself. A deep dark world which no one can understand nor ever exist in. What I want… Is just some warmth. Some warmth that I have never felt before. I am tired diary, I really am. Goodbye diary, I am going to sleep now. Thank you for having heard me rant, diary.

P.S. I really love reading. It’s my only passion. Books… Bring me a different kind of feeling. I get absorbed in them. It’s like I exist in their world.

Love,

Christine.