tales of a fifteen-year-old girl

the nights

time never seems to show.

the night continues in a vicious cycle, but I never seem to tire or force myself to sleep once it gets too late. I still have to function sometimes. 

The night seems to be the calmest time, the quiet you never find anywhere else. The roads remain still, and all the lights shut off in the house, because no one else is as irresponsible with sleep as I am.

Months ago, when the school term started up, I would spend the late nights texting one of my friends, in the holidays, when the mornings didn't require a 6 am start. That doesn't happen anymore, because some people actually tend to sleep at regular times.

I'm josie.

I've never fully understood my name, never really looked at myself and thought it matched, never pictured myself as anything different either.

it's hard to make a nickname for josie, the best it ever came to was jo.c, which when you sound it out it sounds exactly the same. 

I grew up with your everyday terrible household nicknames, being crowned 'don don' by my younger sister when she was unable to say 'jo jo'. No way that was the easier option, but the name stuck. It took me seven years of relentless refusal to be rid of that name. Now all i get called is 'jos', which is almost my favourite name in the world. 

Not that anyone that matters would call me that.

it's funny when you don't have a nickname, because then it isn't real when you tell people to use it. it's unnatural. But i would pay my soul to be called 'jos'

my best friend Matthew texted me one day, on a random whim.

just "jos"

no context, no follow up message, but that was the best part of my day. I probably talked to at least two of my friends about that moment.

you get some sort of feeling when someone actually says your name. People tell me I tend to be 'everywhere', and teachers just know my name, even when i barely know theirs. But to hear "josie" is like someone saying 'i know you', and to be known is to live.