It's a good thing most people bleed on the inside or this would be a gory, blood-smeared earth.

This morning when I left Mom's parting words were, "Come straight home after school." Wow! Like I'm going to get stoned at 3:30—it doesn't sound so bad at that.

Alone. The saddest word in the world.

I'm partly somebody else trying to fit in and say the right things and do the right thing and be in the right place and wear what everybody else is wearing. Sometimes I think we're all trying to be shadows of each other, trying to buy the same records and everything even if we don't like them. Kids are like robots, off an assembly line, and I don't want to be a robot!

The same old dumb teachers teaching the same old dumb subjects in the same old dumb school. I seem to be kind of losing interest in everything. At first I thought high school would be fun but it's just dull. Everything's dull. Maybe it's because I'm growing up and life is becoming more blase.

I can't believe that I changed so little. I expected to look old and hollow and gray, but I guess it's only me on the inside that has shriveled and deteriorated.

The voice of every kid hooked on drugs, alcohol or the occult joins the sad chorus "Not me! I didn't think it could ever happen to me. I was sure I could handle it.