I don't know what the hell is wrong with me.  It's like I'm screaming at the top of my lungs and my father only pushes me further away.  I'm just a burden to him.  I'm a burden to everyone.  I know I must be giving my psychiatrist ulcers.

                The other day, I cut myself.  Not on purpose, mind you.  It really was an accident, though I'm sure Dr. Kyoto will remember to give me some hell about it.  I cut my hand on a link in a fence.  It's funny, because it bled so much, but it didn't hurt at all.

                I got mad at my father.  I yelled curses at him.  I told him I hate him.  I told him he's a sonofabitch and can go to hell for all I care.  I told him it was his fault that mom died.  The doctors had told us there would be complications—he knew, and he pushed her too far and she bled to death and my baby sister died before she was even born and it was his fault.  It's his fault, God and all the saints damn him.

                He hit me.

                I never apologized for the things I said, and I never will.  He deserved them.  It's probably wrong of me to say so, but I don't care.  I don't know what happened to me.  I used to give a damn what my father thought about me.  Now nothing can make me care.  What's the worst he can do?  Give me up for adoption?  That wouldn't be so bad.  That'd be really nice, actually.

                If it's not my father yelling at me or yami doing whatever the hell he feels to me, it's my psychiatrist lecturing me and ignoring the real reason I ended up in therapy or my priest making up some extravagant reason for my coming to him.  It's always something these days.  Schoolwork and chores and pressure about further education and political awareness.

                I'm so burnt out, so run down.  I chew the nerve to dull the pain.  "You have the ability to see beauty in ordinary things.  Do not lose this ability," so a fortune cookie once told me.  I ate it.  I hate it.  What is this frustration lapping at the limits of my mind, breaking on the boundaries of my strength, wearing on the walls of my control?  Is this familiar?  What does it mean?

                I turned twelve yesterday.  Dad left me a card in the morning before rushing off to some archeologist "important meeting" or another.  I'm only twelve.  Is life supposed to be this hard?  Sometimes I pray, but I swear God must be laughing at me.  He never answers—is life supposed to be so hard?  Or am I just weak?  Can anyone help me be strong?  My father won't.  My psychiatrist hasn't.  My priest was convinced I'm being beaten.  What was that?  A year ago?

                Maybe he was blessed with foresight.