It started out as an amusing thought about never telling anyone the truth again.
What if I could do this? If I were to lie about everything in my life forever, what would happen. I pictured the confusion, yet some kind of incredible new world formed entirely by lies. I pictured myself in a blissful state, yet the world around me in disarray and the terror on your face. I wouldn't be telling you these things if I wanted you to like me, in fact, these are the kinds of things I wouldn't tell anyone connected in my life.
These dreams always started with you around, but you had no idea. I'm going to tell you now, I wasn't laughing at you. It was all in your mind, it was all in my head.
The first dream came to me when I was sitting on a bench, waiting for you in the mall. There was a girl handing out samples of lemonade. I watched her doing this--- she didn't move her feet at all. And then I thought about what would happen if I walked up to her and flipped the tray. She wouldn't have seen it coming, and neither would I. I thought about how funny this would be, and I was laughing when you sat down beside me.
You asked, What was funny, and I said, You.
That was a lie, but you believed it, I know you did. Now you lie and say you didn't because you know the truth about me.
The truth about the day at the drive-through. I was driving, and we were being handed ice cream cones. I gave you yours, then smiled. I didn't smile at you--- I was just thinking about how amazing it would be if I threw my ice cream cone at the drive through guy. He had glasses, so the ice cream would have smudged his glasses. Maybe this is why I didn't do it, or maybe it was because you were there with me, and I didn't want to seem cruel.
But I think it was fate.
I was having these visions of total chaos. The first two incidents were innocent enough, but soon I escaped further into this strange area of my mind. You said you thought that you were losing me, but I said I loved you more than ever. You saw the anxiety, I grew nervous. I left you to protect you, I said.
From what.
I knew what on a Tuesday night driving home from your house. My car is the type of car without automatic lights, so I turned them on and saw you standing in the driveway. It was your shadow on the garage door that I focused on. It exaggerated your movements. I exaggerated your movements in my mind. The way you spoke, the way you put your arm around me--- I was dark in your shadow.
About five minutes from your house that night was when the anxiety struck. I stared at my thumbs, wrapped around the wheel, and realized that I could easily just turn my wrists to the right and hit a tree. I was afraid I would do it. I knew I wouldn't, but I could. Maybe I didn't know myself, maybe I am the type of person that would do this sort of thing.
What was I doing. I couldn't be with other people. I couldn't be left alone.
And this is why I'm telling you these things. About how I have the power to kill at any moment, the power to ruin anyone's day, how can you trust me? I don't trust me.
Now it's been a week. I'm on the same bench and you're walking across the mall, slowly, slowly, I'm trying to control the dark side of my mind. The side that's picturing me running to you. The side that shows me kissing you, like in a movie.
How do I know this wouldn't be instant death.

Moments pass by slower when you're waiting.
Sometimes, I wonder what it would be like to always have something to wait for--- something obtainable and approaching. Life would feel longer, and maybe it could seem to last forever.
The mind can change time.
Time changes are odd. I think of time as an ongoing record--- not one that can back up an hour or go forward an hour. What happened to that hour? If you add up all of these time warps when you die, there's probably an entire day or two that you fast-forwarded through. And they take hours away--- you already lived it, but it starts over. And for me this sucks because I'm always sleeping. I would like to be awake and do an hour over again.
I would like to do this past year over again and be friendlier and more confident. I can think of one moment in particular.
I passed him in the hallway, and he had noticed that I dyed my hair over the weekend. It was 10 o'clock.
Yeah, I did dye it.
I like it.
Tha-anks (walking slowly). I could be anyone now, you know? It's like putting on a disguise. Maybe I've suddenly become an 80's punk rock fanatic, you wouldn't know would you.
No, I wouldn't.
At this moment, 10:02, I walked away, saying something existential and stopping halfway through the sentence. I tend to do this--- I start saying something and imagine that no one else can hear it because it's not a complete thought in my head. I have a hard time accepting that everything I say is actually heard by other people. What I should have done, if there was a time warp right then, was out of nowhere told him I was in love with him. It would have been entirely shocking.
I do like daylight, but I don't think we should try to change time to get more daylight. We should instead change our schedules and do everything earlier or later because time is related to the speed of the eart and the earth doesn't stop revolving ever and we keep moving on because of this.
Even when I resist moving on.
When I dwell.
I dwell too much. I should build myself a dwelling out of rocks and hide from the daylight and decide what time it is. And maybe I decide it's always 8 in the morning so that I can keep mentally preparing for my day forever and living out the future in my head. It gets to be 8:01, but then I just jump back to 8. I miss a million appointments and obligations because the world doesn't know about my dark dwelling or my time change.
It's day when it's bright, but in the dwelling it's dark all of the time. It's a dark 8 AM--- my favorite kind because I don't have to see anything yet,
One of those dim mornings, and I have to watch for cars because no one can see me, even though I see them. The lights are in my eyes, but the lights cast a shadow behind me. I wave my arms, and my arms appear distorted on the pavement. My shadow could be anyone. I could be anyone.

I tried to look nice today.
I went out, looking for a job again, and I put make up on for the first time in weeks. I'm driving a green pontiac now, and I've lost all of my tapes. They were in my old car. They're still in my old car. The radio said that U93 is having a new evolution, and I know what that feels like because I am too. I just don't have the same voice down.
Here's a list of everywhere I went: Dairy Queen, Between the Buns, Macri's, Old Navy, Logan's, Cici's, Red Robin, Houlihan's, Hacienda, Olive Garden, and Culver's. It was extremely hot, especially when I walked across the Old Navy parking lot. I imagined myself as someone driving in a car and seeing myself walking through the parking lot.
I've been doing this a lot recently--- having these out of body experiences. This may be because I feel so unrooted at this time in my life. I have no responsibilities and everything to believe in but no chance to act on anything. I've stopped wearing eye makeup and stopped looking fashionable, making myself into someone that could be anyone. Because I can be anyone, because I can make myself believe in anything. Because I am just treading water until I can leave this town and become someone entirely different--- now, I am in between two people. One was imaginary and the next is real.
And right now I just really need a job. I'm always asked about my special skills, which I have discovered I have a lot of. I always put something different. For instance, when I was applying to Aerie, I wrote that I have a "gift" in tying ribbon and an unbelievably soothing voice. I figured that's what they look for in an employee. Maybe I was wrong--- they haven't called me yet, but I don't think I was. And I can also predict the future, which I like to make known. I know what people are going to say before they say it. I know what they mean.
I just never know what I'm going to say.

Most nights I feel as if I'm not inside any walls. The cars that pass on the street outside sound like they are right next to me, and I hear the birds as if they are in the room with me, and I am not protected by anything.I am out in it, out in the night, yet I am seperated. I don't feel the wind, only hear it, and everything is still and artificially lit and safe. I am safe.
I hear the train whistle as if I am on that train, only without the risk of the crash because it's all in my head. The people rushing by, the trees and the towns, the train coming towards my train, and you on the sidewalk before the crash.
And I feel nothing before you disappear from my sight, maybe forever.
You weren't the only one that made promises to live forever. In fact, you were number three. You said I was another kind of person, the kind that would never die because I had something in me. I argued that there was nothing in anyone and nothing in anything, that everything was small.
Never get used to anything, I said.
The most important thing you ever did for me was introduce me to coffee, which I said I hated. I hated the smell of it on your breath. But you told me I wasn't supposed to like it, that no one likes it the first time they taste it, yet they come to like it over time.
And maybe I would too. You poured me a glass, and I forced it down because you said I had something in me.
When you left, the only thing I ever drank was coffee. I drank it every morning, all day, even at night, so I stayed awake for hours waiting for you in the dark. I even got splitting head aches when I stopped drinking coffee. They knew my name in the cafe, but spelled it wrong on the cup.
And now I don't even taste the aftertaste.