I made it to New York! I've wanted to be here for so long and it is amazing, but I miss miss miss my best friend who left me this morning and is now on a plane back to Tucson. I love him. I miss him. I am not alone, though. My second-best friend- my little tabby cat- is stretched across my lap and yawning. She has come so far! She was born feral beneath creosote in arizona but now she is an apartment-dwelling new yorker with a pink bow on her collar.

I'm in Tucson again but in a week I'll be gone for good, I'll be out of this town, this surreal place that smells so strongly of creosote tonight as wind and rain rack the fences and lightning and lightning and lightning flashes all over the black and blue and rose sky. I'm in love with the Sonoran desert and its dusty-sweet scent and its atomic sunsets. I'm in love with my flock of doves and thrashers and cactus wrens. I'm in love. I'm heartbroken. In a week I'll be in New York while the only friends I've ever loved enough to die with or die for are half a world away.

Two nights ago, on an Oregon beach, a friend of mine collapsed into the sand with pale face and unsteady pulse. I stood on the road to wait for an ambulance and cried and imagined the waves rushing up to catch all of us and drown us and break us into little dull bits of bone.
Another time, only a few weeks earlier, I was in a completely different place with different people and as we drove along a twisting, treacherous ledge, I thought to myself, if we drive off the ledge and all die here, I'll still be happy. I'll be happy as we go down. I'll be happy that I'm with these people and that I won't have to die alone.

I want the everything of everything to fall in on itself in a big blue blurry

I've been up all nights. I've been painting and dancing and chain smoking and watching early-morning birds skitter-flitter through trees.

I found a dead puppy in the woods. It was lying on a plastic bag and just its head was buried in the ground. I was high at the time, which I think made the discovery more horrifying than it normally would have been. The creepiness of finding a dead puppy was compounded by the grossness of nearby used condoms and clothing. The moral of this story is: um, I guess there is no moral. Now excuse me while I go throw up.

So just as things are beginning to work out, I'm leaving. I've lived in this city for most of three years and for most of those most of three years things were really horrid. Everyone dying or going insane, drugs drugs and more drugs, attempted murders and actual murders and rape and robberies and abuse and skeezy motherfuckers everywhere. I made the worst decisions and the worst friends. I did everything wrong in every way. I'm scarred now, angry now, afraid now, tougher now, prettier now, ... what was I saying?

Everyone has to grow into themselves and their lives. My old friends have all become so beautiful and I'm proud of them. The three years we've all been away from our hometown have made us into new people and I'm new too but I wish so much that the growing up process wouldn't have been so turbulent. All that's happened will never leave me. I wish it would leave me. I wish I could start over. I will start over. When I'm gone from here I will be newer than ever and I will do everything the way I should've done it from the start.