Dear Diary

Dear Diary,

Go fuck yourself! Seriously. Despite all you have done for me, I am going to throw you onto a bonfire and laugh as each blackened corner of your pages burns away slowly.

You were supposed to help. My parents said it. My therapist said it. Even Kate had said it.

‘Write down what’s bothering you. Writing it all down releases the pressure in your head. If you won’t talk to me, or anyone else for that matter, then why don’t you start a diary?’

Kate had insisted I buy a large one. I think she was implying that I had been thundering around like an angry ape with a lot on my mind and so this whole diary writing business was something to invest in long-term. I wasn’t too bothered about what you looked like. I just wanted something without all the colour and symbols on the front. In the diary section of the shop, everything was covered in hearts and flowers and one even had an image of someone shushing you as if the diary was warning you not to indulge in the secrets that lay within.

They were all fucking pathetic. But then I saw you.

You were classic. Leather bound with a satisfying embossed texture that felt cool against my fingertips. On the spine, your dark green binding shimmered in the overhead lights as I plucked you from the shelves. On the front was one simple word. 

‘Diary’.

No nonsense. No unnecessary showy details. You were as you should be. Unassuming and practical. I had thought Kate was mad for suggesting I buy you but as I caught the bus home that afternoon I felt like a new confidant was lying in wait for me at the bottom of my bag, and that when I returned home and scurried up to my bedroom I would be able to confide, in your rough pages, my innermost thoughts and desires.

We both know this was when my life truly began.

Humans are sociable creatures. Even as primitive beings we would huddle together for safety and protection. As language developed we would share stories and feelings, philosophy and politics. Sharing thoughts with others is one of the things that makes us distinctly human, separating us from the animals. I was never quite wired this way, and you know that. My inability to share my thoughts and feelings was the main reason Kate wanted me to go out and get you in the first place. However, in you, Diary, I found the only set of ears that would never judge me or think my truest feelings were something monstrous. As I whispered with my pen and admitted truths that had lived long in the deepest parts of my brain, I began to feel liberated. The lines on your pages began to fill up with all of the thoughts that I had been forced to keep quiet by society’s rules and expectations. 

Being banned from X and Facebook had made me feel toothless. Every time I set up a new account (Badboy6996, Thetruthhurts4real, OpenURMindSheeple) I would find a page or thread with like-minded people, bond over our passion for uncovering the dark truths of the corrupt world around us, and then just as I started to open up about my true feelings for my fellow humans I would be told that I had gone ‘too far’, be booted from the group, and my account would be reported and blocked within hours. These groups were hardly full of wokie lefty liberals as you well know, Diary. I’d told you about Brock and Gina and the Right is Right movement. These people were prone to extreme views and strong opinions of their own and yet every time I invited them into the purest parts of my brain, they would shut the door on me and kick me back down into the pit on my own.

All this, Diary, is why you became so irresistible and so dangerous, in equal measure. The only time you ever turned your back on me is when I flipped you over to admire the embroidery on your rear cover. I would tell you about my dreams, the details of which would make my mum or dad cry with shame and yet you would invite me to turn the page and tell you more, fill you up with my shame and watch you present it back to me with pride and power. 

Then I started to tell you about Kate. I loved her once, but as I divulged my feelings of care and affection for her it was as if you somehow rewrote every word into something poisonous and vile. At times it appeared that even as I wrote the letters ‘L,O,V,E’ I would watch as you twisted the L into an H, the O into an A, the V into a T; you always left the E well alone. Eventually, the two words blurred into one. 

Kate would leave me little notes on my wallet after staying over with words like ‘don’t forget to take this, as well as my heart, with you wherever you go today’. I would tell you about this diary and within seconds the fondness in my heart would warp into anger and resentment. The more affectionate she was, the more I wrote about it in you and the more wicked vitriol spouted from the end of my pen. 

Our anniversary, yesterday, was the last straw. She had planned a romantic dinner out at Carluccio’s. It had been my favourite restaurant, back when eating seemed like a priority. Their previously sumptuous pastas and pizzas might as well have been rocks and dirt as far as I was concerned, so when she revealed the grand surprise to me I had told her:

‘Oh, great. Sounds…sounds super. Just let me run upstairs quickly’

I burst through the bedroom door, wrenched open the chest of drawers next to my bed and held you, Diary, in my trembling hands. You smelt so appealing and I cradled you next to my crimson cheeks for a good thirty seconds. Then I snatched the fountain pen, you always deserve the best, and caressed you with my latest round of thoughts about how disgusting Kate was, how sly her surprise had been and how she was probably going to fill me up with food and then poison me when I was slow and sluggish back home. The fantasy was utter nonsense, but it felt so fucking good spewing it all over you and I must have made some sort of noise whilst doing so because just before I was finished I heard a clearing of someone’s throat behind me.

‘What the fuck are you doing, Jacob?’

Kate’s eyes were wide and wild, like she did not know whether to be scared, deeply disturbed, disgusted, or all three at once. You were there, Diary, so I’m sure you remember the way her mouth moved as she watched me hunched over you, sweating and grinning a repulsive grin. I couldn’t move. As you know, I wanted to see what she would say next and how this woman who I had once loved but now despised would react to this scene in my bedroom.

‘I don’t know what you are doing in here, but you look a mess and we need to leave, so put away the book and get up!’

How dare she? Right in front of you. She called you something so insulting and ignorant. 

‘Book?’, I whispered with a growl. ‘Book? It’s my diary, Kate. The one you insisted I buy all that time ago. It never tells me to grow up. Diary never shouts at me. She makes me feel powerful and strong unlike you, you callous Bitch…’

I had scratched the word so many times into your fragile pages that I had forgotten how sour it sounded when spoken aloud. Kate was heartbroken. The only fragment of remorse left in my body pulsated for a brief moment as I saw a tear roll down her cheek and cling to her lip gloss. She turned to walk away. If only she had just kept on walking. 

Now I know you never judge me, Diary, and I love you for it, but I will keep it brief this time as I recall for you the ten minutes that followed in this very bedroom, last night. She shouldn’t have said it, right? She shouldn’t have threatened to tell everyone about you. She definitely shouldn’t have tried to rip you from my hands and throw you out of the window. As she tried to wrestle you away from me something primitive came over me. It was as if my innate, animalistic thoughts manifested in a single moment of violence and as I dropped you and tightened my grip around her throat I could feel the air escaping from her lungs and filling my soul with ecstasy.

I never knew a human could be so still. I had seen Kate sleep before, watched her sleeping many times, but as she lay motionless and dead on the floor she was like a painfully beautiful work of art. So pretty and yet not alive. Vibrant and yet lifeless. I studied her for a few moments longer and then remembered that I had dropped you on the floor to deal with her. You were scuffed and dusty but luckily you still hummed with life and possibility. I sat with you for hours that night, telling you just how good it had felt to remove the stress of Kate from my life and to be left with only you. Honestly, it was one of the most beautiful evenings of my life, Diary, and as much as I hate you now I will always cherish that immaculate moment with you.

As I left the house this morning, you tucked safely away in my backpack, I felt an unfamiliar sense of peace. A great burden had been lifted and finally, after all of Kate’s whining about it, I was experiencing the relieving of tension and stress that purchasing you was supposed to bring all along. You had built up my confidence and encouraged me to be myself for the first time in my life, and only your support allowed me to remove the root cause of the stress in my life. 

I sat in our favourite cafe that afternoon only hours ago now and basked in the glow of my actions. I wrote, freely, to you for hours and hours expressing my love for you, for what you encouraged me to do last night and how I could never be without you. It was only after four hours of continuous writing, and two new ink cartridges later, that I took a small break to use the bathroom.

Returning to the table to see you gone was the single most terrifying moment of my life. I literally flipped the table over trying to search for you on the floor or under my seat but there was no sign of you anywhere. Only once I heard the snickering of the kids at the table behind me did I realise what had happened. The look on my face must have been something horrific as I turned and met the giggling eyes of the boys sitting in the corner of the cafe. Their laughter quickly turned silent as the boy with you in his hands gasped at something he had read. He was on the freshest page, the one on which I had only just scribbled the details of the euphoria I felt as I popped Kate like a sore pimple. The boy’s head slowly rose to meet my eyes, and I recognised the terror on his face as being akin to the same feelings I had when I thought I had lost you. But there you were. You were all that mattered.

I sprinted over to the table, and within two steps of my run the boy holding the book practically disintegrated trying to scramble out of my way. He shouted at his friends to follow him and, taking one look at the frothing snarl that had formed on my face, they duly obliged. I pounced on you and pulled you close to me as if we were long-lost lovers reunited at last. Because that’s what we were.

Only after indulging in our reunion for a few moments, Diary, did I realise the danger we were in. The boy was standing on the other side of the road, on the phone, shouting something about a book and a murderer and a psychopath. He was lucky I had only recently punished someone else for calling you that word or else he might have been popped today as well. At that moment I realised, however, that something had never occurred to me before. I reveal all of my desires and feelings in your pages, Diary, but it had never dawned on me that anyone else could read those words that I had kept safe inside of you. In my mind, you were only visible to me, only accessible to me, as no one else had ever tried to take a peek inside your leather cover.

I believed that we had one simple rule, Diary. The things that I told you were supposed to be a secret, not something to share with other people. You let a scrawny little teenager take a peek inside my mind. You should have stopped him, told him no, found a way to repel him. Instead, you opened up and made it easy for him, and now he knew what I had done.

This time I ran all the way home. I locked myself in my bedroom and have been sitting here on the floor for two hours. The blue lights and sirens you can probably hear arrived around five minutes ago. I keep having to shout out of the window that I will shoot myself if they force their way in, which seems to be making them hesitate for now. Maybe it is just my way of taking some time to think, but maybe I mean it. Kate is gone, and you have betrayed me too, Diary. I expected Kate to let me down but if I can’t trust you, I don’t think I can trust anyone else in my life. My secrets are out there, and if they find you, Diary, then every single one of the things I have trusted you with will find its way into the hands of the bad people. The ones who drove me to become this way. The ones who drove me into your arms.

So that is why I hate you now. You broke my heart and stabbed me in the back when you let that boy into my mind. The candle lighter across the room from me is now shimmering just like you did in the shop that day. It is calling me, promising me that it will keep my secrets safe in the way you failed to do. I am going to finish this thought, Diary, and then I will use that lighter to eradicate you from existence. You will be gone forever, and with you dies my final chance at surviving this world. 

If any of the spilled ink in your pages survives the roaring flames that are coming your way then please, if you ever loved me, remember one thing. I beg.

When it comes to the rest of my secrets, Diary, don’t tell anyone.