I have been writing in a journal on an almost-daily basis since I was 17 years old. This is a record of me going through each entry from the beginning, and commenting on the me from fifteen years ago.

Life was once in my grasp, now it slowly moves farther from my reach with every day. Something odd is happening, it’s growing and it’s waiting. Soon the revely will be heard and the shots fired. It’s all caving in.

I seem to flip flop in my journal from longing for love and longing for death - and I gotta say, I am sick of hearing me whine! I know this is no way to handle people who are suicidal, but since it’s the past me I’m talking about, I’ll go ahead and say it. Someone just should’ve smacked me and told me to just get over it or do something about it. I would have been too jaded to take the smackers advice, but at least I would have had something new and interesting to write about.

Dear journal, face still stinging from slap.

Actually, I would have written it like this:

The red welt that rises upon my face is a reflection of the welt upon my soul that stings ever so much.

Has teenage suicide ever produced any profound and/or insightful prose? I doubt it.