>>From: Belacqua
>>To: Perdita
>>Subject: unavoidable
>>Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2001

Two nights in a row was pretty fucking optimistic of me. I have this light, dull throbbing right behind my forehead right now, and I still feel like I'm looking through my own eyes but I'm standing ten feet away from them. I have to escape reality, Perdita. I can't fucking handle the world so I have to run away from it. Why? You can't run away from anything forever.

I don't think I'm having a particularly good night. I just finished watching The Insider, which was probably the most goddamn boring movie I've ever seen in my entire fucking life. My god. That was the longest two and a half hours I've ever spent doing anything. I enjoyed having my wisdom teeth pulled more than I enjoyed that movie just because I had Valium then and it made it seem interesting. This was just fucking boring and stupid. It was absolutely maddening. Hell, I couldn't pay attention to most of it, anyway. No matter what happened, my mind was right back with you. You're this constant motif that runs behind every single thought I have. All I have to do is shift my attention ever so slightly, and there you are. It's great and strange and relieving and unusual all at the same time. I always thought my capacity to love was going to be uselessly funneled out into the universe to swirl around with indifferent stars and planets before I emptied myself and withered into a forgotten pile of dust. There wasn't ever going to be anyone who needed me as much as I needed them. But there you are. Sometimes I can feel the electricity crackling down my spine, and my chest begins to feel like it's going to burst open and rain diamonds from the ceiling. I've got it right now; I'm dancing with the words. I can feel the words churning from my fingertips and swirling in a private little symphony that only we can hear...this invisible music that the rest of the world can't hear or experience.

At least I didn't drink a whole lot. I just drank it fast, which is probably no better, but it reached the same result in the end with conservation of liquor: an excellent result. I'm so mad, Perdita. I'm mad at the world for driving me to this. I'm mad that everyone I see during the day can function in this world “normally” and not have to lose their mind every night in order to save it. People drink for fun. Fun! A few people drink to escape every once in awhile, but this is fucking crazy. For my Milton class, I have to write a letter to the professor introducing myself to him, and the only things I have to say are the types of things that would probably scare him and make him call some medical authority to lock me away. If you take away this disease and its effects, I don't have anywhere near an entire page to talk about.

Shit. I'm tired of the world. I don't want any part of it. God, I feel so repetitive. There's only so many different ways to say, "I give up," before you start to repeat yourself. And then you have to give up saying you give up.

I'm always with you in my head Perdita, and it's hard to exist in the real world when you aren't there. Don't ever worry that I'm leaving the south against my will or just for you. If I don't get out of here soon, I'm going to be planted here in a little fiberglass box because I just can't take it much longer. I have my last talon embedded in the flesh of reality, and it's slipping really fast.

God, I miss you so much.

I love you, Perdita.
Belacqua

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>From: Perdita
>To: Belacqua
>Subject: Re: unavoidable
>Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2001

Belacqua,

You know, I first started keeping a journal when I was in ninth grade because a friend of mine bought me a fountain pen and a journal for my birthday. My ninth grade journal is very boring, but I was determined to continue writing in it, if for no reason other than to prove to myself that I had some sort of discipline. Once tenth grade rolled around, the journal became less of a chore and more of an outlet for much-needed venting that could be done nowhere else. Then, the depression fell upon me, and my writing was all I had. At first, I wasn't sure I'd ever look back at the journals, but once a few years had passed, I found myself looking back on them more and more frequently.

After Dante's brother died, I flipped out and started writing CONSTANTLY, trying to get rid of the horrible feeling that had so suddenly descended upon me. Needless to say, the attempt was largely ineffectual, but it did give me lots of ambition to write. Looking back on the journals from tenth grade became like a strange ritual of sorts that I had to do every once in awhile to keep me from losing my mind (ha). I think I was still trying to come to terms with it or whatever, but there's a definite part of me that thinks things only exist if they're put in writing; I had to repeatedly check to see if all that had happened to me was real. (That was an interesting concept for Artaud, too.)

In any case, writing in my journals and rereading my journals became a necessary part of my survival. Once I started on my meds, I knew I had to sort through my journals further to try and put them into some sort of ORDER for one final time. That's why I ended up putting together Life Sucks. The point here (as you're probably wondering) is that I LOVED working on Life Sucks. That book is me, plain and simply. The book is me more than I am me, as the book has a substance of form that I do not. It will indisputably be around on this planet longer than I am. So, I’m going to start working on putting our e-mails together into a book. It's very strange, but something in me gets totally wrapped up in projects like this, and I'm sure I'll be working diligently on them for a long time to come.

I love you so much.
Perdita