journal entry number negative

when i picked up my camera it was heavy and felt right in my hands. this is new, i thought, but it didn't feel new. i put it up to my face and looked through it and into myself, it seemed, though i could see nothing but what was in front of me. objects became important. hands became important. sight became important. moving became important.
my camera is my best friend, and is the reason i get out of bed every morning. i said this in front of a mirror, watching my lips move and wondering at the sight. i was new. i named my camera jack kerouac because he could say things better than anyone else.

the first day it was cloudy and i took a picture outside. i wanted a picture of my hand so i wouldn't forget it. i wanted a picture of your hand inside of mine even though at that moment you were probably on a date with a girl or asking her inside or asking to be inside of her. i did not know this at the time. i wanted to take a hundred and five pictures of you, talking and smiling and breathing and anything but blank. i saw you when you were blank, most of the time. or faking sadness so i would love you. and i did but you didn't want love, after all.

i took a picture of ice cracking and i showed my uncle later, and he said it was blurry, or else it would have been a good picture. i love it anyways, i wanted to say. but i didn't because he was right, it was blurry.

it became summer and i stopped taking pictures after you said i wasn't beautiful, even though you were the first person that said i was. i didn't like focusing on things any more, and i didn't like getting out of bed. if i did take pictures i took them without my glasses on, then everything was blurry and when i took a blurry picture it would be right. it seemed significant.

i went to the ocean and there i took pictures, and i set jack kerouac on a rock and tried to take a self-timed picture of myself, but i would cut my head off. so i gave up. i hated pictures of myself anyways, i would just see the absence of you.

i only got one picture of you, ever. you were writing a song and you look angry. it was on my birthday, which you had forgotten. i remember that much, and i remember a little how you didn't talk to me.

now i almost never think about you and i don't take pictures as much, but my camera still feels right in my hand. i don't think your hand every felt good holding mine, and i lied to myself when i thought i loved you. i know a boy now who tries to make me feel good, and someday i would like to hold his hand. i think it would fit perfectly in mine. i like him. i hope you like dating all my friends, they are nice people. you were too, once. but you never looked good in a picture.