So it's pre-finals week. I should be studying for history. But I'm not. I'm avoiding that. I really really don't WANT to think about the Panic of 1819 or the effects of slavery on the United States as a whole. Why would I want to do that when I can sit here and kavetch? ...Pre-cisely.

Yesterday was our dorm's literary magazine's Coming-Out party. It's called Purple. I have something published in it... I'll post that eventually. I was really scared. I read my thingy (with EMOTION) in front of a live audience of people I mostly didn't know at the Cherry St. Artisan (what a cool place). I was soo nervous, because I've never done that before; read something I wrote for the first time in front of a live audience of people I don't know. Weird, but I think I managed to use my fear, syphoned through my narrative, to make my narrative more ...amazing. I hope that worked.

Spent last night with Eric. That was really splendid. I love being all cuddly with him...*sigh*.

All right, this is what I had published in Purple. It's not about me...except in the general way it is about everyone...
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Hello?? Can you see me now?
By: Megan Kinkade
Written as everyone, as no one

Hello?
Is anyone there? Is….anyone….there?

Oh, good. You came. Thank you. I know this doesn’t make sense, and I don’t really expect it to, and I know we aren’t exactly “friends,” but…I just needed someone, anyone, to listen to me. I had to get this out.

I’m dying on the inside. No, not from anything like cancer or heart disease or even the flu. I’m dying from invisibility. No one knows who I am, and I guess no one really cares to find out. I mean, people know my name, they force a smile when I walk by, but I don’t think anyone really cares about who I am, about what I think.

Sure, they say it’s my fault no one can see me. Take off your masks, reveal yourself to us, we’ll pay attention, they say. But it isn’t that easy. It isn’t like that at all. So I wanted to talk to you, talk to you without my masks, because I feel like I can trust you…even if I don’t know you at all.

I don’t feel like a whole person here. It’s like no one can reach me because I’ve fallen in a dark, dank well. And I don’t even have a Lassie to tell people I need help…I’m trapped I the well.

People don’t really notice what I say, so I follow them around, hoping one day they’ll look up and realize I’m there. Wow! - they’ll say - what an amazing person you are! How did we not notice this before?? And I’ll be thrust into the spotlight of their lives and they will love me.

I guess that’s what it really is. I don’t feel like I’m loved at all. Not even my body, which is just the easiest part to see.

But my body can work for me. Sometimes, when I’m feeling my most invisible, I’ll draw attention to myself using my figure. Wear something I’ll look ‘good’ in.

Heh. But that’s really ironic, because most of the time, I don’t even feel like I fit in my own skin. I both love and hate that I have to use my body to encourage people to see my mind, my soul. Most days I feel like something is wrong with me - my hair is a complete mess, my legs are too short, my chin is too long. I am like the liquid in a barometer -- with any slight change in temperature and my surroundings from moment to moment I will change shape, fit a little differently.

This is why I feel like I’m ambiguous. Ambiguous shape, ambiguous mentality, ambiguous age. Ambiguous and invisible. Like Play-doh, I’m morphing to my surroundings. Pinch me, pull me, I’m never the same.

The thing about Play-doh, though, is it’s always the same ‘stuff’ no matter what form it is in. No matter if you make a zebra, a ball, or a fort, it will always be Play-doh, and it will harden and crack, but it will still be Play-doh. No matter how to contort me, no matter how your eyes strip me down, I will always be me, the person inside, beyond, the form I’ve taken for the day.

I watch a lot of movies. I feel like I’m accepted when I’m sitting there in a dark theater, sunk deep into a padded chair, hearing the whirr of the images as they hit the screen. Movies draw us in, and the whole time I’m watching I am not myself, invisible and unknown, I am FABULOUS! I am a watcher to a private scandal. I am Julia Roberts, walking down the street and turning heads of every guy I meet. I am Keanu Reeves, shooting bullets into the faces of robotic agents determined to take me down.

I am anyone but me.

I swear to you…I didn’t do this on purpose. I want people to know who I am. I want people to know that I am bright, funny, intriguing, and capable of being happy, even if I can’t be now. I want people to see my soul, and accept me, even when I don’t act like I appreciate it. I do. I swear I do. I’m just trying to squirm my way into your life. Please let me in.

It’s like what they say in that one movie…that one where Nicole Kidman is so beautiful? (Where I can be so beautiful watching her?) “The greatest thing you’ll ever learn is just to love, and be loved in return.”

Man. I wish I could be loved. Maybe then I could express my love…

But that’s not possible. Not possible until people start to notice me. So I ask you, please. Notice those that maybe sometimes irritate you, those little kids and confused teens. We all deserve love; at least that’s what they tell us in Sunday School.

I just want a little piece.

Did you hear that, too? Someone’s here. I have to go.

No! I have to go right now. I can’t meet them like this. I have to put on my masks and face them as they want to see me. I can’t handle them seeing me like this. That’s not how it needs to work.

I have to go now. Really.

Thank you. Thank you for showing me people can listen - even if you didn’t hear anything I had to say, thank you for … making me feel like I existed.