here comes your ghost again

april and may and joan baez

?th april 2026

i have spent every day of this spring break eating and reading and watching tv. when the weather was okay i went outside on short walks, or to sit on the balcony to read or paint my nails.

ive been listening exclusively to joni mitchell, tori amos and joan baez. its been nice. i also think i have forgotten how to write. now school is starting again and i would like to walk in front of a train. the thing about functioning is i will say i cant do it i cant take it anymore and then i will do it still. itll be okay.

anyway i read slouching towards bethlehem. i liked the essays about joan baez and los angeles and 1967 san francisco and notebooks especially. really i liked most of them. i like the way joan didion sees life, sees the stories in everything. the way she focuses on the details and feelings of things. i like that im reading her books in no logical or recommended order whatsoever and i like her adjectives, chimerical, truculent, indelible, ephemeral, putrescent.

there are a lot of places i would like to travel to, sometime, for the stories. often i wish i could float like a ghost, invisible, untouchable, all over the world through the cities and towns and hotels and bars and stores and trailer parks, deserts and rainforests and mountains and plains and seas, just observing, writing things down. then maybe after a while id come back here and hug my mother and write a book about it. sometime.

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7th april

i am less sad today. the childrens psychiatrist clinic made me do an intelligence test. i placed cubes to replicate patters and compared words and sayings and recited numbers backwards and answered questions about freedom of speech and hydrogen and italy and cleopatra. it was interesting.

after that i took the train to the bigger city. it was beautifully sunny and still outside. i walked around. i listened to tori amos, to the people chattering in the streets, to the birds. i bought pink hair dye from the nerd store and i walked down to the docks, to the oil museum where dad’s mother took us some days when she was younger, less frail, less afraid. by it, by the docks, there are old rubber tires and poles and concrete shapes all covered in colourful graffiti. i remember we sat there on the tires and ate raisin buns from seven eleven. i remember the hot sun making the tires sticky, making the black melt and stain our jackets and our palms. the place was smaller than i remembered it.

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19th april

i have once again forgotten how to write but i will try anyway. not a lot happened between 7th april and today. i was at one point very suicidal and almost got myself admitted to the psych ward but then i was okay again. i dyed my hair and finished reading howls moving castle. now i am in dublin. and happy.

i love it here. i love ireland and i am considering learning irish and going to college in dublin, galway or cork.

we went to the national gallery today, and then there was more art on the fence around marrion square park, and it was sunny and all the sun and the art and the shops and the pride flags made me very happy. i bought a piano tie at an alt clothing store and the woman working there said in her lovely irish accent that she loved my jeans.

i am feeling very grateful for a lot of things. that i get to do this. that i get to have a life and experience some of the nice things that can happen in a life. im reading beautiful world, where are you by sally rooney and i am grateful to be able to do that too. its now 5.47pm. tori amos concert at 9pm. i am so excited.

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26th april

at midnight yesterday my moms colleague showed up outside. she had many cuts on her neck and kept insisting i shouldnt wake my mom, she would just stay in her car through the night. i let her in and woke mom and they stood in the kitchen talking about her unstable boyfriend who had become violent. it was very sad. i listened to them for a while and then i gave her some banana bread.

other than that the concert was really really good. my brother is sitting in the other room on the phone with his friend. they’re playing roblox and talking very loudly. its less windy today. maybe ill leave the house.

mom and colleague have gone somewhere in moms car. i dont know what theyll do. things keep happening that give me faith in people but then other things keep happening that do the opposite. they remind me what a sick unjust and awful place the world is to some people. too many people.

my mom cried at the concert to crucify because it made her feel like a teenager again. i also cried because i am a teenager. i love the world. i love life. i wish we didnt make it so ugly.

2nd may 2026

its may. its raining. im listening to joan baez. see the children in the morning light bobby theyre dying.

we are going to a family gathering today. dads side. ive baked vegan chocolate chip cookies. my brothers are getting dressed and mom is in the kitchen. she is being loud and i flinch every time she puts a plate down or runs the tap or shuts a cupboard too hard. i dont know what to write about anymore. i read the diary of a young girl, anne frank, and posted this:

now im reading detransition, baby by torrey peters and it is very interesting. i am learning things. the characters are fascinating and annoying and deeply flawed.

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i got the intelligence test results. i scored above average in visual and verbal intelligence. my therapist explained the categories despite me saying i already understood what they meant and afterwards said that i was wasting my potential. that made me sad.

moms colleague has gone to oslo to stay with a friend there and to think about what to do now. her name is maria. i miss her. mom is vacuuming. i asked her to close the door between us because it was loud and she shouted no and told me to go away instead of complaining. im crying now. whatever. i cant breathe in this dress that fit perfectly half a year ago. turns out recovery makes you gain weight. i love you. i love everyone. im cold.

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6th may 2026

today has happened. i am feeling strange. just now it felt as if my words were making sense again, like they were correct, coherent, beautiful. then i lost them. i hope they come back soon and stay for a while. i hate having to force them out. i feel so lost without them.

i am sitting on my bed with my neck bent awkwardly to one side typing this. the lights are off. the window is closed. its past midnight and really the 7th. at school we drew shapes and landscapes and gradients with coal and white chalk. that was nice. in math we talked about graphs and statistics.

my drawings:

my drawings

then i took a bus to the hospital, walked to the psych unit somehow without getting lost, through the automatic door, up 2 sets of stairs, through another door, and was told to sit in a blue armchair with a striped orange pillow.

the therapist is a man who reminds me of arren’s dad and who leads wednesday group therapy. my therapist sent me there. today was my second meeting with him. he asked me questions about suicidal ideation and school and friends and feelings and what i thought i would achieve through group therapy. i picked at my nails and the beads on my bracelets and stared at the ground. he saw the bandage on my arm and asked if i had gotten hurt. i nodded. he said, accusingly, “and how did that happen?”

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i miss many people. i am worried for the people who are still here. i am scared to lose them. i am grateful for every single good memory and every bad one too because they all go together to tell a story and stories are what makes life worth living. i like cats and rubber tires and apple juice and old cds. in conclusion i am so sad but so hopeful too and i have decided to spend more time reading and listening to tori amos and painting my nails. it is 1am now. goodnight.

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7th may 2026

i miss dublin, i miss spring break, i miss maria, neighbour girl is coming over soon.

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