This journal is somewhat personal. Therefore, these are thoughts and reaction which may be distasteful to [the] reader. Also, it is realistic, so there is language occasionally which is rather unrefined.

Day uneventful on surface, wrought with tension underneath.

W. walked me from bus, quick kiss before G. spotted me. G.'s day off. Hate it when he's off. Makes me even more aware of terrible inadequacies in my character.

Restless, moody day. Wanted a car to run me over. Tried to banish suicidal thoughts with walk to center. Did no good. Men whistled, as usual.

Must try to dispel bad thoughts.

September 22

Thinking: Belles Lettres of a Teen-age Neurotic.

I'm seventeen, 5'3", green eyes, brown hair, fair skin. I've been called immensely talented, brilliant. I'm not bad-looking, have even been called beautiful. I'm a mature, well-balanced person.

So why do I feel I've got nothing to live for?

Conformity; remember that word. It's dangerous. There's something soothing in it, like laudanum. It's addicting, seemingly productive, safe, secure. That's why it's dangerous.

If I liked it, I never would have been able to continue with my writing, my acting, my rebellion.

Rebels; W. and I. He with long hair, denims. I with short hair, denims.

Irony; my appearance: so sweet, innocent, while I'm quietly, in my own way, shaking the system.

I remember the talent show. Elisabeth Pruitt, doing an original 2 part monologue. HA! The only one in the whole show who didn't sing or dance!

Me, underneath those terrible lights, clutching my stuffed toy, trying to be a child. And succeeding. The surprise on their faces! That I could go from laughing to crying real tears in ten seconds. That I could go from little girl to old woman in thirty.

And the waves of applause, a sudden din in the quiet auditorium.

"I've won!" I thought. Even if I didn't get the ribbon, I've won!

Because I've won them. I played them into the palm of my hand. They begin jeering and end standing, clapping forever.

Sept. 24

Terrible day. Continual rain. Detest that school. Smug, upper-middle class caterpillars in clean, segregated cocoons.

Want to leave. Want to escape. Am tired of being mature, rational. Want to lie down in a corner and cry, cry wildly.

How much longer do I have to buck the system? Why can't people just mind their own business? If I wanna kill myself, so help me I will!

W. supposed to come over. Will undoubtedly feel guilty after.

Lack of sleep getting me. Averaging 5 hours per night.

Splish
    The rain filters in, unchecked.
Trickling
    Down the broken glass.
God's
    Crying. Why does no one
Hear
    Him? But the shells are
Too
    Loud and the tanks too
Near
    To signal him.
Splash
    Against green metal
Plop
    Against a still hand.
God
    Bless America; the Devil
Already
    Has.

Radiance bursting, splintering
Cascading to earth, tiny
Shreds of luminous heat.
Apollo, master of the universe,
Master of all light,
Master of the sun.
Immortality is yours;
Whenever the silvery
Orb descends, the blinding
Glory once more begins the
Upward climb.
You shall never die;
Your work dies a slow
Death every night.
Yet it once more lives,
It rises.
Touch, taste, tactile.
Drawing in, capturing,
Holding forever.
The triumphs and the
Tragedies, the tears and
The laughter.
O, yes, Apollo, we hear
You. We follow you.
And - memories shall
Live forever.

Cold, rainy. Stayed out yesterday. Affair with W. culminated, consummated. Must end it immediately. Too powerful. Wonder about reactions to this journal. Bad idea. My life is my business. Will probably buy another, substitute it.

Can imagine reactions. Horror, disgust, of course, shock.

Met N. at center yesterday. Tense. Invited home for coffee and aspirin. Bought new shirt yesterday. Couldn't afford it, really.

Must go out immediately after arrival home. W. might come over, best to simply not be there.

G. cheerful to point of being saccarahin. Spelled that wrong.

Am getting fatigued. Am sick of always being on fringes. Everytime I'm rejected, I just thumb my nose more. I'm lucky. Don't need my "peers," who are usually idiots anyway.

Must stop writing in this vein. Am getting as vindictive as a barracuda.

Who cares what they think? Da Vinci was a laughing stock. Marlon Brando kept getting thrown out of school.

Finished with Dorothy Parker collection. Fascinating view of life. Correction, views.

Tired of fighting. Should stick head in oven. Except with my luck it wouldn't work.

Hate school. Would like to quit.

Sept. 24

Isadora Duncan.
Virginia Woolf.
And of course, Sylvia Plath.

I feel an affinity to them all.

Must try to find a reason to justify my existence.

It is funny. A lot of women envy me. No good reason. Not because I'm intelligent or talented or anything sensible.

It's because I'm attractive to men.

How silly, how common. I wish I could tell them. Having men around is no big deal. Young or old, rich or poor, they're almost all alike.

Easy to figure out, so very easy.

The simple wants and desires of children. If they want something, they go after it.

Very few even have finesse. Thank God for that. If they knew the "proper" way to go about achieving their goals, even more people would be hurt.

Thank god for men, the simplicity of children.

It's only when they get older and gain in cunning that they are dangerous.

Sept. 30

Dying slowly. A plant can't grow without light. How much longer can I continue without affection, without attention?

How can anyone love me? Im stupid, I'm funny-looking, I'm fat.

Why don't I just kill myself? I am doing no one any good. I can't speak French, I can't type or act or take shorthand.

Is anything good gonna become of you, Elisabeth Ann?

The whisper of dust shaken,
Curtains. Curtains to breathe.
Oh God, I wanna die ...
The curtains are trying to
Draw back. Hold them!
Oh God, I wanna die ...
The audience is growing
Louder. They move, rustle,
Rumble. Oh God, I wanna die ...
It's time. What to do?
I've forestalled long enough.
Lights. Stripes and
Broads, dim and blinding.
The make-up is melting,
Dripping off my face ...
Camoflague. Oh God, I wanna
Die! Lights, camera ...
My life has to begin.

Saroyan-ish day. Images and thoughts and memories.

The brothers in that pizza place. Good-looking, sleek, sensual, smiling, periodically breaking into Italian. The smell of melting cheese, of oregano, of cigarette smoke. Cash registers painted bright red, long, long counter, high stools, booths fading into the ever present dimness.

What matters any more? I'm marching toward death, like everyone else. Except that it will be much sooner for me than others.

Have read much about suicide. Everyone feels different about it.

I think it's something you have to try before you're qualified to speak about it. Don't feel like writing about such things tonight.

The people upstairs walking about again. As usual, I'm totally alone.

The people upstairs are living. They're talking, breathing, seeing.

I feel as if I were a metaphysical eavesdropper. They know so little of me, yet I feel as if I know everything about them.

I know when they have company, when they talk on the phone, when they sleep - no. I really don't know anything about them.

I don't know when they're happy or sad. I don't know what griefs, what tragedies have given the woman that look around her eyes.

The board-walk at the far end of Laurel Avenue where we all lived.

The Pruitts. The ideal marriage. Three kids, two cars, the eldest daughter doing well in school.

How shocked they are when everything just quietly fell apart.

The great American dream shot down in mid-air.

The board-walk. Ice-cream waffles sprinkled with confectioners' sugar, a piece of wax paper wrapped around. Corn-on-the-cob, the "test your strength" machines at the penny arcade. Shrieks from the "scrambler." And overlying everything was the smell of the sea, the salt and foam and coolness, and the beautiful, glorious silver against blue melting into black.

Those days are gone, my life is gone. Where is the beauty? Can it have slipped away, as simple and easy as a thief in the night?

No. No. It's a song, a song the orchestra has finished - for now. While the other pieces whirl by, changing, growing, developing, I'll wait.

And maybe, just maybe, when the gas or the gun or the pills have worked - maybe the maestro will tap the baton again, to play the only eternal song, the melody of peace and love, once more.

October 2, 1975

Can't do transition. Can't do anything, come to think of it.

Couldn't do bridges in P.E. either. Wrist feels like stiches pulling out everytime I attempt it. Damn that wrist. It'll be there for the rest of my life.

G. says life always takes care of itself. So why do seven people starve to death every three minutes?

What'll happen to me? I have so many more negative traits than positive.

"A creature of intellect." Ha! Me! That's funny. That's hysterical. How can I be anything?

October 4

2 AM
And God and the
World are sleeping.
2 AM
And every sound is
A gunshot in the
Silence born of sleep.
2 AM
And inside ten million
Little matchboxes ten
Million matches sleep.
2 AM
And the matches are
Burning low, flames
Eating slowly, eating the
Life out of us all.
2 AM
And we are storing the
Energy we shall need
For the morrow, when
We leave the matchboxes.
2 AM
And the flame burns
On and on, feeding,
With a slow sureness
Not quite terrifying,
Just present, looking
Over our shoulders.
2 AM
And we sleep, our souls
Working in our rest,
Telling us the wisdom
We ignore.
2 AM
And our dreams work on:
The matches seeking through
Oblivion the knowledge that
They may never find.

Popcorn amber and rough,
The first drafts.
Peanuts mahogany and smooth,
Sweetness and wonder,
The polished philosophy.
But so abundant, such
A surplus, that they are
With but little value.
How to choose?
What's the difference?
Popcorn is so simple,
Easy, a few basic
Shapes, usually with
Few variations.
People are so simple,
Easy, a few basic
Shapes, usually with
Few variations.
Peanuts are more complex,
Darkness outside, paleness
Inside, more difficult
To analyze the taste.
People can be more complex,
Darkness outside, paleness
Inside, more difficult to
Analyze.
And yes, there is the
Prize.
Thrust among the ordinary,
In a wrapper concealing
The value, for those who
Dare, there is the
Prize.
The wrapper distracts the
Foolish, those who have not
The courage to seek further.
Ask not where lies the
Answer; the answer is there,
Hidden among the everyday,
Rarely seen, rarely seen
With the eyes of wisdom.
Where is the sense to
It all?
Why do we live and die?
Search inwardly,
For there, there among the
Simplicity, there lies the
Answer.

Didn't go to school Friday. Couldn't sleep till 6 AM. Dozed for an hour, then had nightmare.

Nightmares returning is a bad omen. Insomnia going from bad to worse.

Means acceleration of insecurities. Desperately need reason to justify my existence. Think of death more and more. The abyss draws near.

I'm afraid. What's going to happen? I'm not pretty, smart, popular. I've got nothing, nothing, a goose egg, zero, zilch.

What's happening? Maybe I'm schizo?

WINNERS / LOSERS
    RED / PINK
    GOLD / YELLOW
    AZURE / BLUE

OPPOSITES/
    POVERTY / WEALTH
    DARK / LIGHT
        INTENSITIES

WINNERS / MONEY, EASE, LUXURY
WINNERS/ ALCOHOL, DEBAUCHERY, DISINTEGRATION

LOSERS / STARVATION, IGNORANCE, DISEASE
LOSERS / FAMILY, PEACE OF MIND
        WINNERS / LOSERS
            INTENSITIES

The Phantom Lover

When next I cast my eyes
Upon my love's countenance, thy
Sigh orbs, red as the sun
That now set, shall close
Upon my heart forever.
When next my love's limbs
Life me to yon heaven's,
Thy unwash't hands shall
Know this porcelain flesh
Nevermore. My love is Apollo
and Eros, Hermes and Titan.
Alas, my love is not my betrothed.
Nay, my love is as the silver
Of yon pretty maid's hair,
Rippling unto this earth.
When next I open mine eyes
Upon thy leaden carcass, husband
Mine, my lover shall have hastn'ed
Home, my lover shall be gone.

Time drifts on. Snowflakes lacy, cold, empty in their beauty. You want to hold them, but they melt, leaving you with a small pool, a small drop of nothing.

Such is time. I want to be a playwrite, yet how can I ever hope to be one? Saroyan, Tennessee Williams, Paul Zindel, Shakespeare, Clifford Odets, - how can I ever emulate any of them?

I can't write, I can't act, I can't sing, I can't type - what in God's name will I be?

[ DON'T READ THIS IF YOU ARE EMBARASSED OR OFFENDED EASILY. IT WAS WRITTEN IN A WHITE-HEAT PASSION. ]

I keep having visions of starving to death, no place to go, trying to sell myself on the street. - The nightmares are back. The insomnia has increased. I can only sleep in the afternoons, after coming home from school.

G. says I have a hyper-active brain. I can never stop thinking.

I wish I could just accept things. I can't.

I just keep mulling things over.

Christ, Christ, Tom, Tom, Tom. You dirty bastard! I hate you, I hate you, I hate you! Why did you do it? What did I ever do to you! That bastard.

Who am I kidding? Not myself. I love him, I love him, I'd take him back in a minute, God, please, I'm so confused, I love him and I hate him, I want him dead, that dirty son of a gun.

Oh God, please help me figure it all out.

There must be a God. If not, there's nothing.

October 14

Chain reaction of events. Not sure what to do.

It's true, you can be in love with 2 people at once.

Am afraid. Things keep rushing forward at terrific pace.

"I would have walked
Head on to the deep end of
The river." - Elton John

Maybe I'm already in the deep end. I don't know, I don't know.

What's gonna happen to me? I'm afraid, afraid. So what? So's the rest of the human race.

We're all children, groping in the dark for something, all trying to pretend we're not afraid, so that the others won't know.

Later

I'm going further and further in. I'm afraid of this world, this ugliness they call reality. It's a place where I'm unloved and unwanted. If the kids I go to school with and the teachers, too, could get rid of me, they'd be quite happy. I don't fit in, I'm the triangle peg in the round hole. I'm quiet, so it isn't like some kind of obnoxious loud-mouth, but I'm different, and they know it. They'd kill me if they could get away with it. Why do people hate me so? What have I ever done to deserve it?

October 16

Got a C- on group thing. Don't really care. I have hated that group since I got stuck in it. Hate them all. I can't work with crowds. I freeze up, and can't even carry a conversation.

Am bored with humanity. They lack imagination and compassion. They start violence and destruction. They have no kindness.

The school psychologist told my mother I had a high I.Q., way above average. He said I have a fertile imagination and a unique outlook. And he said I was about 4 years ahead of my age group.

I refuse to participate in any more groups. Let them fail me. I've reached the point where just a little more pressure is going to make me quit altogether. I've put up with this all my life. You think I'm weird, eh, folks? You think I'm freaky? Well, you'll get a damn good look at freakiness. Lis Pruitt going to hell with herself is quite a sight to behold.

Quit, then leave. Reality? I won't have to deal with it. I know a lot of people who don't. Hash, acid, Southern Comfort, Tom Collins. Support for these comforts of the dream life? There's always been plenty of men around.

They've been making passes at me since I was ten. Just think of it, I would have led the free and easy life of a baby prostitute.

They tell me that I'm a dreamer. They say I've lost touch with reality. Maybe I have.

Reality is garbage and hate and violence, ignorance and prejudice.

No, I don't like your reality. I won't accept it. Why should I?

I'm an artist. I'm exempt from their rules. A poet doesn't worry. I'm not going to. I know the inevitable. When the time comes, there's no use stalling.

Feel sorry for G. Lately he's getting afraid to return. Afraid of what he'll find. He's taken to calling every day to see if I'm still there. He's afraid because he can tell what I'm thinking. He knows that [I'm] not just mildly unhappy. Adolescents get that way, but I'm not an adolescent. I'm a woman in a woman's body. And no one will admit it, though they know it.

October 17

I love to watch people walk. They reveal so much.

Take 2 people who are emotionally involved but are afraid to admit it.

They start out walking with a little distance between them. But gradually they begin to walk nearer, keeping a little away from each other still.

Have decided how to play lady Mac. She was ambition in human form. Women in those days didn't really get a chance to do anything important, so here is Lady Mac, an ambitious, sexual sort of creature.

She didn't love MacBeth. There was a good strong tie of desire between them, but it was a relationship long on passion and short on tenderness.

Her ambition is linked with her sexuality. She knew of her power over Mac, indeed depended on it for her scheme. And Mac was weak, he didn't want to cross her, for fear of her wrath, as well as fear of his losing her. A complex relationship between 2 complex people.

                        Isolation
In the crisp coolness
Of the atmosphere, distant
and frost-covered as a
Patch of ice.

I wonder what will become of me. I don't fit in.

Why can't they understand I'm more comfortable with words and ideas than people; that I feel greater sympathy with a metaphor than a group?

I want to lead, not be led. I want to think, not listen.

I am unique. I'm not one of them. Maybe I'm not ever going to fit in, but that's insignificant.

I'm a poet, an artist. I don't need to follow their rules. I have to meet up to my own standards. Never be afraid of the dark, i.e., the unkown.

I'll never die. My work is me. Therefore, as long as anyone remembers the work, I won't die.

I think Puck has summed up my outlook on others. I'll end here with it.

"What fools these mortals be!"

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