"Like fleas or the smell of cheap cologne, she is hard to get rid of. Smiling, smug, arms crossed, her pixie-toes tap out a tap out a metal rhythm that sounds like the smack of surgical tools falling onto a metal try. Like genius or sorrow she has curled up inside me and censors no evil, no criticism.

Sometimes she's British. Sometimes she is a poet. Sometimes she has a drawling southern accent when she mocks me. Other times she is long-nailed and pure JAP. She's got a rough cat's tongue and a debutante smile. She's got a Chanel bag, and outdrink me any day, and is the skinniest girl I know. But she is always, always right.

She likes to skip around and wear transparent victorian nightgowns even on the coldest nights, in order to mock my shivering mortality.

Occasionally, late at night, she is kind: she lights my cigarettes, pours me drinks, and waits quietly for some mutual banter to emerge.

But more and more, she resembles a lion-woman: her hungry iron gaze is trained on me, never wavering. Her eyes penetrate; she is always prepared, always ready to pounce on the slightest vulnerability. When I stumble on the street, she laughs: proof. But when I slip into my clothes, and they hang a little looser, she pats my back and hands me an extra sweater, my lion self.

She is incomplete, a succubus: trigger-happy, toilet-mouthed, knife-wielding, blue and white and sometimes green in the face from screaming, from telling me all I cannot have. When I manage to beat her down, tie her into a chair on the far side of the room, get her to eat some food, she smiles her sanguine, toothless grin. She starves proudly, waits, like a saint, she waits for death by fire or baptism.

--'This is when' she spits, when it is three o'clock in the morning and I can't sleep from hunger

She is holy, wholly my own, and when I reach out to touch her image in my face, she hovers an inch or so before my skull. Then she flicks her tongue out at me like the enraged lion she is; she snaps my fingers between her feline jaws; a barrage of dead spiders, splinters of wood, and bone.

--'This is when I love you the most' "

Even after I had finished reading the book "Skinny" by Ibi Kaslik, these two pages out of all 256 were what stood out the most to me. Like a poem or a catchy song, I had them stuck in my head for weeks-- or at least parts of them. Everything from this excerpt, in my opinion, is beautiful, real, raw, and completely and utterly heart-breaking. This girl that Giselle describes is everything she is, desires to be, or fears the most in the world.

This girl is her.

She is each fragment of her imagination.

She is her perfect self and her weakest self

Her beautiful self, and her hideous self.

She is her conscience and confidence or lack thereof.

What I think is so interesting about this is the whole concept of a war against yourself, of you being your own worst enemy, of your greatest fear being yourself-- what you can or cannot do to or for yourself. I know that this is something I've experienced- maybe not as deeply or vividly as Giselle, but an experience is an experience, right? Though I've never felt an image like this one so graphically or robustly, I know what it's like to be afraid of yourself or what you've done or become, and I think that most others do as well whether they realize it or not.

Some may think that the notion of battling yourself seems silly. Now, think about it some more. You know yourself better than anyone or anything else in the whole world. You know every single strong point and each and every weakness. You know what makes you vulnerable and what will have no affect at all. You know what has happened to you and what hasn't. You know what you want and what you fear. You've spent more time with yourself than anyone. You could navigate your mind or your heart with your eyes closed, you could even do it asleep.

And, you do.

Every day.

Which is, when you think about it, the key to defeating anyone- knowing every single nook and cranny of their inner workings like the back of your hand.

And that is what's so terrifying about a battle against yourself-- you will never win.

Sometimes, I Wish I Could Forget

Time is relative. When you're 14 years old, the last 4 years may have seemed like the longest, best, worst, most important, most painful, what-ever-it-is years of your life. Then, as a 50 year old, your life has been steady, settled for a while and the last four years seem unimportant, a nonentity. A senior in high school may think that the year can't go any slower- that it seems like a lifetime before they will graduate when, in the big picture, this year is only one tiny fraction of their life. We all live and die, and go unnoticed by many. four years mean nothing in the grand scheme of things, but can define someones entire life.

Now, take a moment to think about the last four years of your life. Think about what they meant, what they did, how they changed you as a person. Think about what things would be like had they never happened, what you would be like if they simply disappeared. One moment they were part of your history, a chunk of your memory, and the next, they were just gone. It would be as if a part of your life never even existed, you suddenly rewinded. this is what happened to Naomi Porter.

She hit her head on slippery steps and in a split second, four years disappeared. Anything from after the age of 12 was simply erased from her memory- her mothers affair, her parents divorce, her boyfriend Ace, her best friend Will, her love for yearbook, her love for tennis, her ability to drive, her lost virginity, her new house, her half sister- everything. The most eventful, vital years of her life were forgotten. Her world had become a mystery- why did she drop that class? Why did she fall for Ace? Where did she wear that dress? How did she have her hair? Who was Will, really, to her? She begins to search for clues to piece together her history with. She had to trust people to tell her pieces of her life, and to tell them honestly. Naomi's life became a complete nightmare of question and wondering. At the same time, though, her amnesia had given her a fresh start. At sixteen years old, she had basically no past. She could choose to simply start over, be a whole new person. She didn't remember the old one, and no one would know that it ever existed. When Naomi finally does remember everything, she hides it. She doesn't tell anyone that her memory is back because, she doesn't want it to be. Starting over felt good, she didn't want to face the reality of her real life.

This book, Memories of a Teenage Amnesiac, makes me think so deeply about what it's like to forget. Is it better to forget your mistakes? To live with no history? To start with a clean slate? Or, is the point of life to live with the decisions that you make? At one point in the book, Naomi comments that she thinks perhaps the only reason that her significant other, James liked her is because she has no past, because the present and the future can be what she chooses, what she wants them to be. There are times in my life, and I'm sure yours too, when I think that nothing could ever get worse. When I feel like just giving up on everything and everyone. At such a time, I would kill to erase my mistakes. I would literally do anything to go back in time and just start over. But, maybe everything happens for a reason (I know, that sounds corny and stupid and over-used) but, perhaps it is true. Perhaps, every thing you do happens for a reason. Every mistake you make is meant to be nothing more or less than a mistake. I often wonder, should Naomi start over? Should she take this golden opportunity to be a whole new girl? Or, should she accept the person she was and live with it, with what she was supposed to be, for better or worse. What would each of us, as flawed human beings do?

I need to get inspired

I've spent aproximately three and a half hours staring at the blank space where my entry should be. Occasionally I will take a break from that oh-so-hard work and get some water or a piece of gum. Then, of course, I will go back to my staring and thinking. I have no idea what to write. None whatsoever. This had never happend to me. Ok, that's a lie- it's happend to me a million times but, it never went on for this long and never for a reading response. Reading responses are fun to me, easy- I love writing essays and responses and entries- fiction is what I have trouble with (basically anything that requires the artistic side of my brain). I don't know why I have suddenly lost my ability to write.

I can't help but think that perhaps it has something to do with (go ahead, make fun of me) Harry Potter. After re-reading the seventh book a few weeks ago and then seeing the movie three times since then, my life has been practically filled with the best book of the best series, ever. I feel like it's risen my standards. I've picked up and dropped at least three books since then because they just don't draw me in as much. It seems as if nothing is or ever will be comparable to Harry Potter. I've noticed this in the past as well- everytime I read one of the HP books, it takes me a few weeks of no reading to be able to thoroughly appreciate the next book that I pick up, like a cool- down period almost.

The trouble with this is that I want to read. I love reading. I want something that will draw me in as much as Harry Potter does every single time. I want a book where I feel just as connected to every single character introduced. I want to be able to laugh and cry and think deeper into every word I see. Harry Potter is the perfect book and I don't expect anything to ever top that. but I wish that there was something just as good for me to read.