There's three things in this world that you need: respect for all kinds of life, a nice bowel movement on a regular basis, and a navy blazer.

I have so much anger right now. It's palpable. On the other hand, I feel more in touch with the poet in me than I have for ten years. Maybe the anger is a good thing. Maybe within the anger lies the lyrical.

Much of my anger comes from being a woman, and stems from the injustices I see brought upon my sex. Yes, it has gotten better. But it still isn't good enough. Sometimes the way the media treats us, the way the world treats us, the way my close male friends treat us--it's too much. And I try not to be too much of a raging feminist (who wants to hang around a raging ANYTHING?) but it just comes leaking out of me. And it ends up playing a role in my personal life, in my sex life. I feel like until I find a man that is a feminist (not just one that begrudgingly accepts the fact that women are "equal"), I won't be able to let one in entirely. Perhaps it is a lost cause. Perhaps it is a cause not worth fighting. Perhaps I am just too angry. Perhaps I just need to relax and just hope that everything will work out and that the anger will go away. But would I be turning my back on something important not just to me, but to womankind? "We have to be the change we want to see in the world."

Love makes me angry. This past year I have experienced the full spectrum of love, ranging from the unrequited to the unresolved to the unwelcome. All too intense, all too upsetting. My experience with love has been volatile at best, devastating at worst. Is it better to have loved and lost? Yes. Without a doubt. I wouldn't trade a minute of it. To the men whom I have loved, and the ones who have loved me, I thank you. Without you, I would not be who I am. Every bit of torture has informed the kind of woman I have become.

I am angry because of the place I am in right now. Because of goals still not reached, of dreams that still hover in the unattainable distance, taunting me, mocking me. I'm getting older, and here am I still. This is not to say I haven't accomplished anything. I have. But I have so far to go. SO. FAR.

I am angry at some people I love. I feel abandoned and cast aside, misunderstood and taken for granted. That sounds so mawkish, even as I type it, but it's the truth. And it doesn't even begin to graze the surface of what I have been feeling lately. But I'll leave it at that. Far better to be brief than maudlin.

When I was seventeen, I was misdiagnosed with Major Depression and given Prozac. Now, to anybody who knows anything about Bipolar Disorder, this is a HUGE--and quite dangerous--mistake. Prozac causes a Bipolar mind to cycle every day. (Usually you cycle every few days, or every couple of weeks.) Needless to say, my seventeenth year was a scary one. I was so angry ALL OF THE TIME and there was hardly anything that could make me feel normal. My own mother was afraid of me, and was at a loss for what to do. I cut class, I flunked out, I ran away, and every day was a challenge. But damn, did I write good poetry that year.

I feel seventeen again.