w.a.s.t.e.d

"There are times when I'm just a shell...
When I do not feel anything for anyone;
All I feel is hollow and bruised,
Used up and misused,
Forced to be someone I don't want to be.
Have I failed somehow or some way?
Will the weight of today finally pull me down to drown
In the depths of despair...
Where I am alone
Except for my rage?"

I moved through cycles and cycles of self-destruction last night. I wallowed in guilt, choked on depression, drowned in despair...and now these phrases I've just written seem completely saturated with self-pity and patheticism. I was up until five in the morning. I got up four hours later...this same morning.

I got up four hours later because I had to go to the bank. I got up to go to the bank because I don't have enough money to go to school this year. I don't have enough money to go to school this year because the national financial aid services have declared my family "not needy enough" to receive more than one loan. My loan this year is $1,750 a semester. Tuition is $4,907 a semester.

You see where the dilemma lays?

My grandparents, who assured both me and my mother that they'd help out with "anything the bank [didn't] cover" have suddenly (and conveniently) forgotten this discussion. My dirtbag father, who last year claimed he couldn't send any money to help me because he "couldn't find stamps" to send it, hasn't said a word to me in weeks. I don't want to talk to him anymore, I think. He makes me sick -- pathological liar and cheapskate parent of mine. This little girl has never had her daddy...and it doesn't seem like I'll be able to count on him now. I need to come up with $1,700 in ten days; the first one-third of tuition is due in a week and a half...and I don't know where we're going to get it.

Ashes to ashes.

Here's the thing: my best friend loathes me. Here's the thing: my sister is grappling with depression in Texas, and I can't do anything -- at all -- to make it go away. Here's the thing: I have no money to go to college, and I'm not sure how long I'll be able to stay there. I didn't want to be an English professor that bad anyway, I guess. Here's the thing: medical bills from my mom's third bout with cancer are piling up, and my stepdad doesn't even know how we're going to heat the house this winter. Here's the thing: ting-a-ling. Here's the thing: I can't tell if this sickness I'm experiencing is real or just a product of fear and past experiences. Here's the thing: if it's real, we can't go to the doctor...in the off-chance that it's something small, we can't afford a slew of tests "for nothing."

You see where the dilemma lays?

"A darkness grows inside me in fading shades of gray;
All the colors of the world are slowly sucked away.
I'm sinking ever deeper to a place that's cold and black --
I can't believe I've lost [me]...
And [I'm]... never coming back."