... my borderline personality disorder handbook says to treat each person like another culture. there is no should or should not, just working with the situation. each person another culture. like a glimpse of the lost tribe.

sept 23 2003
... this morning when he left he said, �ciao bella.� isn�t it strange how i try to record everything he says to me, as if, collected, they will form some kind of force or entity. reading old journals, it�s so meaningless to read every single nice thing gabe ever said to me. once he said, �you�re my best friend. ever.� does that mean anything at all? did it ever? i collected them on paper as if i were trying to save myself from asphyxiation. trying to convince myself he loved me. now i just want to remember what each moment was like. save it in a box so i can feel it forever. when he said it, i was standing on my balcony and he was below me, just about to walk away with his bike ...

sept 24 2003
... it�s so amazing how understanding he is about everything [things i don�t write about online]. i can�t imagine someone being more understanding. and the way he interacts with me is so gentle, but sometimes not � twisting each other�s hands tight and pulling.
i just had the strangest thought � when i read that sentence years from now, will i still understand what i meant by twisting and pulling?
it is my goal never to forget that feeling.

sept 25 2003 in the kitchen making tea 10:30 pm.
last night after i wrote that, he had fallen asleep sprawled across the bed with his clothes still on. i poked him a little and we undressed and got in bed. the most wonderful moment is always when we first touch each other under the covers and then we draw closer, holy, so warm and enveloping. it�s like drowning. (this sounds like when i used to try to describe a heroin rush. maybe pure pleasure is homogenous?)

i told him the thing i�d just written in my diary, about how understanding he is and how much it means to me. i throw compliments at him right and left, but it seemed to sink in a bit more, and he thanked me for saying that. when we woke up in the morning we both had been having dreams about each other.

i�m starting to see this thing in him... escape. he wrote to me of meeting the perfect stranger, fixed gaze, surrender, and jump, sinking... then once he mentioned that scene in the princess and the warrior when they hold hands, look at each other, and jump off the roof, and you think they die, but then you see them sinking into this lake next to the building, sinking into the green water cold silence. then they run away and escape. and when i was telling him about my aunt marcia�s hut on the beach in thailand, so remote you can only get to it by train and bus and donkey and foot, he had the most peaceful expression on his face when he said �that would be so perfect.�

[i wish i could give him that kind of peace.]

i have the same impulse to escape. turn away. surrender. leave and run away. but not into peace or silence. just into a new angle. parallax. or a whirlwind of newness.

sept 26 (today)
last night we went out with his friends, to a bar, and i watched him play pool, and we drank a lot, and picked songs on the jukebox. the air between us is almost solid with sharp pulling.

when we came back here he finally got to meet sam. kind of. donna and sam were in bed, and sam wouldn�t come out from under the covers, but he talked to us, hidden. it was like kurtz. that voice. oh, a glimpse of his face in the shadows! maybe today they will get to meet face to face. boy still doesn�t believe sam is real.

show me show me show me how you do that trick the one that makes me scream she said the one that makes me laugh she said and threw her arms around my neck oh show me how you do it and i promise you i promise that. i�ll run away with you. spinning on that dizzy edge i kissed her face i kissed her neck and dreamed of all the different ways i had to make her smile.