The book is small, small enough to fit into a back pocket, and hard covered. Black in color, the pages made from soft rice paper. Everything written inside is scrawled in pen with a rather messy hand, of course in nearly unreadable Kanji.

14日2月2014年

Valentines Day. Or ‘White Day’ - ホワイトデー – where I come from.
I don’t normally do this shit, but as the days turn into weeks… weeks pool into months… and months drag on into years… I find myself forgetting who I am and where I came from. I’m now so integrated into this American way of living. This shit stain of a city is wearing me thin and every day I sit back and question why the hell I’m still here. I have nothing going for me – I haven’t in years. Uprooting my life and everything I am just to start completely over again – and again – and again - really pulls me down. How much longer can I keep doing this?

I suppose I should back track. That way when looking back on the pathetic life I’ve lived I can at least have answers to why – and memories to try and remember.

I fucking hate February. The feelings that stir wrench so deep inside of me, making me completely and utterly miserable. It’s my birthday in two days. Not many people know. Not even most of the people that could be considered ‘close’ to me. Hell, it took years before I fessed up to the people I spend my life with. Why? I don’t have any good reason. I’m just… afraid to open up to anyone at all. Even about little things.
I worry that once I start tearing down these bricks I’ve built up high, it will start an avalanche and everything I hide behind will come crashing down. Hard. All of my lies I’ve started will catch up to me and I just can’t stop.
I’ll be twenty-eight. Or at least, that’s what I tell everyone when they ask. Nobody questions me. Us Asians carry our age better than most others anyway, so it’s not unusual that I look so young. When will I stop lying? Better yet, when did I start?
I don’t have any plans. It’s not like I have any good friends anyway. All of the people I finally get close too seem to disappear from my life. Again and again and again. Why do I bother. It hurts, being left behind and forgotten like I never mattered. Especially when I think about how selfless I really try to be. I’m constantly trying to put aside my own feelings and help everyone else. Nobody knows that every smile I force for them is fake, that every time I brush aside my feelings I’m really breaking inside. And what do I get in return? I get robbed, beaten, drugged, kidnapped, tortured, raped…
Whatever happened to Karma?

It’s always like this too. Ever since I can remember I’ve put everyone else before me. I‘ve fucked up my own life beyond repair for everyone else, and I’ve got nothing to show for it. The one time I really, finally was happy… I fucked that up too. I finally had someone that cared about me, someone I was close to and could open up with… someone that really understood my fucked up situation, my shitty life and they still were there for me, to return that selflessness I always gave up.

That’s why I fucking hate Valentines Day.

I don’t even want to write anymore. I feel sick to my stomach just thinking about it. My mind is bouncing every which way anyway. I've got so much to say... and nobody to talk to.

I’ll probably come back to these pages when I’m celebrating my birthday by myself.
誕生日おめでとう to me.

~京