I stare out the window at the sun, treetops tickling it and weaving their fingers through its thick yellow beams. The next moment, I sneeze violently, thanks to the allergies that naturally come with summer, for me. Despite that, though, I open the window and take a deep breath. Instantly, the warm-but-cooling air that smelled distinctly, somehow, of summer, invokes such strong feelings of nostalgia that I groan and thump my head against the glass of the window.

It reminds me of so much, not just memories but the memories of thought, which you can’t consciously grasp but that you feel in your soul, somehow, something so familiar that your mind reaches for it, craving it incessantly. It’s almost unbearable sometimes, and there isn’t anything you can do about it, unless you travel back in time, which is as of yet impossible.

Bus trips, my mind whispers, green grass, cool nights, underneath the tree, rain. I scowl and glare a hole in the window. I have chemistry to do, I snap back.

My mind laughs with a slight hiss in its tone. Yes, chemistry. You and him. Remember? Cascada. t.a.T.u. All those bands. The little clump of trees, and glowsticks…

Shut up! I screech, and tear a hole in my paper trying to write “7.80 g C”.

My own mind won’t shut up, the traitor. Remember the euphoria? That came with it? How music sounded, how you felt, spinning, dizzy. Read your journal. Remember it? All a part of summer. Summer. Incense, more grass…just spinning and laughing and laughing.

I can’t pretend to ignore my thoughts anymore. So? I snap brusquely.

You miss it. It isn’t an accusation so much as a softly-stated fact.

So what? I repeat, and try to concentrate. No, you divide by the moles, not the other way around—

Oh, you know there’s no use in blocking me out, in blocking them out. It’s too late. You miss it.

I – don’t – care, I manage. Can you leave me alone? I’m trying to work.

My mind laughs again. You know what’s in your purse.

I say no so forcefully I glance around to make sure I didn’t yell it out loud. Then, calmer, but harder, I repeat, No. Not again. I promised.

I know you. You can’t stand this. You want him back, you want them back, you want it back. Daft Punk, and his cat with the freaky eyes that one time, and his friend asking you what you were on…

I succeed in shoving my mind into the lowest corner I know and throwing every single thing I have in my head against that door.

--

I pour them out and line them up. Eighteen, two shy of a full bottle. My mp3 is charged and I have my notebook. Pen and paper, to scrawl all over. Glowsticks. I shove my mind away when it tries to speak; it doesn’t need to say anything. I can feel the smug triumph emanating from it. A little part, a separate entity, is sad and quiet, and tries to convince me to stop, but I quickly crush that, too. I—just—don’t—want—to—think.

I know this is one of those things I’ll regret in the morning. I’ll be all over myself, hitting myself, crushing myself, hating my mind and wishing I could shred it to absolute pieces, but the night air and the moon, and I’ve turned my music on and these songs are so familiar.

I swallow them quickly without trying to think about it. Even so, I’m still slightly queasy afterwards. After a while, it got so that swallowing numerous amounts of pills altogether instantly triggered my gag reflex. A body’s natural defense against things like suicide, I suppose. I drink some milk after and imagine that helps. And then all I have to do is wait.

I go and practice the piano like a good little girl, and everything is normal as I knew it would be, until half an hour later when I get up and I can’t stand straight fast, and then I sit down and I realize the piano sounds funny to my ears. By then it is eleven. Feigning tiredness, I excuse myself to go to bed and I go take a shower, with the lights off and a glowstick.

It’s funny, then. You’re not so cold, or not so hot, no matter how high you turn up the hot water. I watch the steam rise off my skin in the orange light of the glowstick and smile. I missed this.

I have to be careful in washing my hair, to make sure I don’t scratch wounds into my scalp. Sensation overall is lessened, pain included. It occurs to me I should have brought a candle today, to play with. Maybe I could have actually pinched the flame out this time.

But it’s too late, so I stand up to get my towel and I wobble, not quite light-headed, but not quite steady. I might fall backward, and I reach for the faucets with which to steady myself. I do not need them, after all, and draw back the shower curtain, and as expected, the cool air that hits my skin does not make me shiver. I’m hardly aware of it.

Brushing my teeth, too, feels odd. I do not blow dry my hair because: number one, I am not supposed to wash my hair after eleven, and number two, I know I will be up late enough for it to dry. Besides, wet hair on skin that cannot feel like it should is odd, and so part of the experience, and so I leave it, trying not to drip all over everything as I slip into my room. My parents are not in bed yet.

So I line the bottom of my door with a black scarf to keep out the light, and dance with glowstick and Cascada. My mind is silent, because the gels have dulled it, but then again, that has to be what it wanted, after all that clamouring for it.

I wish he were here and that I could do this with him again. Spin in the trees, lie in the grass. Maybe I won’t be able to see the stars, but that’s okay. I’m not near tall enough to reach for the stars. Then it is just the music, and just the carpet under my feet and hands and the glowstick blurring in my eyes.

I close my eyes and wish I were in that forest…like the one I see Amy Lee in, in “Eternal”. It must be so nice there. I wish I were so far gone for that.

--

It is four in the morning and I decide I need to sleep soon. I climb up on my bed and let my head loll back and forth. I did it frequently the first time; I always feel a need to do it to make sure it’s working. The gels, not my head. My head never works. I feel like writing, expressing myself, only the best I can do is my name, spaced too far apart in a grip that feels too light to actually write anything, and then I give up and turn back the page to read the things I had written from an earlier experience. Through the haze in my mind, I finally trip through the entire thing.

this isn't what i wanted. this isn't what i wanted at all. 20, and nothing mental, much. no hazy fuzz to play with. only physical. just like last time. all 20. next time - 30, and it's no longer the urge to go for 3rd plateau only cuz i haven't before. different now. i didn't want to feel this way. i wanted to not be able to think at all or be very depressed. i'm neither, and near perfectly emotionless, and were it not for that i would be immensely pissed off. here in my bubble it only, only manifests as annoyance. a minor annoyance. i could be said to be in such a good mood right now. if i could hate i would hate the dex right now for doing this to me. this isn't what i wanted at all, not after -

it would seem i spoke too soon. even only minutes later tessa's hands find my mind and wrap her fingers around it, drawing it down into a haze, not necessarily pleasant, still emotionless, but at least, she means to destroy my mind, and if i were sane or sober i would refute her for it but i am not and so i will not.

again i take my words back. my grandmother called, forgetting the time, from hong kong. i could quite carry a conversation, only not being able to focus on more than one voice at a time and so forgetting, when my mother talked to me.

i can dance, jump. spin. i don't feel like the dance though. i stuffed my mp3 chock full of depressing songs and i will use none of them tonight. damn you, tessa. and yet i know you won't leave me. you have too strong a hold on me for that. i know what you're like. the pretty kind, that turn malicious, jealous, vindictive, though misunderstood in your zealous nature, in wanting to keep me for your own. i'm sorry. for what, i know no more. you may have my mind.

head shake. obviously, i can be less lucid than i thought. that should bode well, for ramblings. i can feel her more, now. perhaps since i took them all in larger doses - 10, 5, 5, instead of all chopped up, one here, one there like last time.

i suddenly want a store of much, much more. a tylenol helps. and i'm okay with swallowing, now.

i want, maybe to slice. just a pretty, shallow, slice. but it has to be red. i'm not insane or so out of it i won't be careful, and no matter how that sounded i'm lucid enough to not be dumb.

haven't written so much here in a long, long time, have i. no.

oh, btw, i have nemo writ on my left hand...nemo, latin, for nothing.

perhaps the knife won't hurt, tonight. or perhaps i will use a candle. if it doesn't hurt inside, doesn't it stand to reason that it too will not hurt outside?

i ought to go shower. i don't want a glowstick. they are too bright, and then not bright enough. no, that was babbling. i don't want it because it's there for emotion, and comfort. i want a flame, or no light at all.

so mote it be.

I laugh when I’m done. Tessa sounds so cruel. But I still love her. I toss the notebook aside, somewhere near the foot of the bed beside Eeyore. It is 4:32 – how did it take me so long to read something? It’s time for bed. I crank up the music and let my head loll on my pillow. The blankets feel nice…tomorrow my parents are going to ask me again how I can stand to sleep without the AC on. I will just shrug and tell them I didn’t feel hot last night.

--

I finish typing the odd mix of experience and longing. The gels are in my purse. I haven’t used them yet. My music player is happily churning out very familiar songs, and I sigh. If only I could. Maybe one day I will actually give in and use them. I miss last summer so very much…