I hope many people do love me in my life. Someday someone will love me the way the boys did, but even more. I wonder where that person is right now, and if he is wondering where I am and what I look like, and when we will finally meet. I wonder if Margaret has ever thought about sex the way that I do.
On the way home I tried to hum the song she had hummed to me, but I couldn't remember it. I felt very good inside when I left 1400 River Road, and that feeling stayed with me, all through my ride back to the stables, all the way home with Mom in the car, and even now it is just as strong. I hope Margaret isn't feeling lonely right now. I hope she is feeling as happy as I am. I only wish I could have brought her news of how happy her life would be. It's too bad I had nothing for her.
More later, L
P.S. Donna still hasn't called me back.
November 13, 1985
Listening to the Wood
Inside the trees are souls I think
Souls that grow and change
Inside each leaf, so quiet
A memory of moments no one else
has seen
But no man ever listens
Takes the time to think
That trees might see what happens
That in the way they rustle
Is a hint they wish to speak.
They might have tried to whisper
In the palm of someone's hand
their memory of the little girl
How there is a new hole inside her
And a new and smaller mouth
But no one believes or cares
That maybe
The tree would know
Something was very wrong
That it wants to talk about the
sadness
It has seen so many nights
I think the world
Should walk deep into the woods
Listen very carefully,
To the voices in the leaves.
See the details, the tiny maps
Of footsteps, and sometimes stains
They should see that the leaves
Are shaped like tears
They should study the design in
fallen needles
Maybe there are some markings on
the ground
That will lead the world
To the one who made
The hole.
It is late, and he came tonight. I don't know if the Log Lady was talking about the right Laura Palmer.
November 20, 1985
Dear Diary,
I had a dream just now that makes me believe I will not be sleeping tonight.
I was in a room. It was very empty, and I was feeling badly that it was empty. I thought it was my fault that nothing was there. I was crouched in one of the corners of the room, and I was staring at this one spot at the other end of the room, because I knew something was going to be there, soon.
After a minute, I started to get very cold. And I thought that I saw something, but it disappeared. Then I looked away because I was trying to find the door that went to another room and out of this one, because I wanted to see if the furniture was in another room. I felt very bad about something and I wanted to fix things, so that I could stop feeling so... guilty. I guess that's what I was feeling. Guilt.
I turned back to look aross the room and there was an enormous rat sitting there. I knew in the dream that it was coming after me, and that it wanted to bite my foot off. I became so afraid! I saw it come closer and closer to me and I tried to think of a way to stop it, or a place to run away, but there wasn't anywhere to go, or anything I could do!
I know it may sound funny, but it was so frightening. I sat very still and tried to keep my feet tight against my body so that the rat couldn't get to my foot. I couldn't stop thinking of how awful it was going to feel when it closed its jaws around my ankle and bit down. I didn't want to feel that, and I didn't want the rat to come near me. Don't come near me! I just kept thinking of how much pain there would be... And so, in the dream, because I knew all he wanted was my foot, I bit my foot off myself.
When I woke up, I could barely breathe, I was so scared! I can still see the rat, and I think it was after me because something was wrong with the room, or I was being punished for something. But I was more afraid of the rat's teeth and how much it would hurt... So I decided I would do it. I would hurt myself, before he could. Even though I didn't understand why the rat wanted to hurt me, I just knew I had to do it myself, or he would.
I didn't like that dream at all. Please, Diary, I know it sounds silly, but don't judge me the way someone might if they heard me tell them this dream. I hope I never dream like that again. I don't even want to know what it means, or if I'm sure I even want to remember it. I'll decide that tomorrow, when the darkness is gone, and things are easier to see when they come after you.
It makes me mad that I feel like I can't go and tell Mom about this. I'm afraid she'll laugh and then maybe tell it to everyone and embarrass me. I'm so afraid people will laugh at me. I am going to try to be more like Donna. I'll be good and I'll do everything I'm supposed to do. That way, there won't be anything anyone can find out and make fun of me for. There will be nothing they can say I have done wrong.
I bet that what I did with Donna and the boys is causing this. I can't even think straight enough to decide if one feeling was worth the other. Something has to be causing nights like this. I will try to be better. I will stop doing things that older girls should be doing. I will not let anyone hurt me, like in the dream. I'll hurt myself first. I know the places that are the most delicate. I'll do the hurting from now on, as long as all of this stops!!!!
I wish I could talk to my mommy.
Laura
December 16, 1985
Dear Diary,
I don't know that I will be writing in you for a while. I have just had another dream. I must have fallen asleep while I was waiting for the sun.
I don't know why, but I kept seeing you appear and disappear on people's laps. On their seats at the diner, when they went to the jukebox. On the hood of their cars when they went to go driving. I tried to take you back, but you kept sliding away. You were going to tell everyone what was inside you.
A few people read what was written there and these people turned into rats. They wanted to take me out the way BOB does. I think that until I understand more, we shouldn't speak. I don't know why I dreamed this... but I am too afraid to challenge it.
If this doesn't make the nightmares and the fire and the ropes and the little silver blades go away... Maybe I am supposed to give into them. Maybe that is what is meant for me. Maybe I just have to be patient and stop fighting it, and it will go away.
I hate to say good-bye to a listener as good as you. I feel I must, though, until I find out if you are somehow talking to people when I don't know about it.
Am I going crazy? I can't wait until vacation is over and school starts again so that I can have something to keep me busy. I look at other girls that I know, other girls I see, and they all smile, like I do. Inside are they beginning to lose everything they know? Have they stopped trusting themselves and everyone around them too? Please don't let me find out that I am the only one on earth with this pain.
Laura
April 23,1986
Dear Diary,
It has been a long time since I've written. School is fine but I find it almost too easy. There is not enough to keep my mind from wandering to boys, or fantasies. Donna and I have had several fights this year because she says I'm acting strangely to her, and that I'm not being the friend that I was. I hate crying, so why does it come so easily lately? I am only trying to be good, and to keep busy, and not to do too much talking or daydreaming because I thought that bothered people and made bad things happen to me.
Now Donna is mad because I won't tell her what I'm really feeling, because I'm afraid! I can't tell her I'm afraid because she would make me tell her why. I can never ever tell. I haven't even touched myself where I
know I can to make myself feel good. I'm afraid, because that is about sex, and I decided I wouldn't think about that anymore... which is so hard!!!
I hate myself, and I hate my life! Dad has been busy all the time lately with Benjamin and his work there at the Great Northern, and I am starting to feel the way Audrey must when her father spends more time and attention with me than he does with her.
Now it is happening in the reverse, and I am just trying to be good and make it stop, and it is only getting harder for me to sleep or even eat! I don't want to feel this way anymore. If I do, I know something awful will happen.
I dreamed last night that I had dug a hole in the backyard for a well, because I was trying to help us with water, and I thought a well would be a nice thing to build for the family. Mom loved the idea and smiled very big. But when she went outside, later in the dream, I was burying myself in the hole, trying to kill myself. She realized I had lied to her, and this made her very upset. She ran out to stop me, and I screamed that I didn't want to wake up in the middle of the night with leaves all over me anymore. I wanted to be a tree so that I could listen for trouble in the woods. And I was buried all of a sudden. But I was inside something that wasn't a dirt hole.
Mom came to my room right after to ask if I was all right, and I told her I was fine. I was just having nightmares about the woods is all. The look on her face went from sadness to hopefulness. Then, unfortunately, she began something I didn't need to hear at all! She started telling me about the birds and the bees, and about birth control and babies, and all of this ridiculous stuff about how my dreams were just a part of my changing body, and maybe I just needed some questions answered.
The whole time she talked to me, I was thinking of something else.
I had to think of flowers and of smiling faces and anything... big trucks filled with lumber, of birds, of Donna Donna Donna ... good things only. Don't listen, couldn't listen to that voice saying all of the things that were like little keys to the doors and rooms I wasn't supposed to be in! How could this happen? She didn't stop for almost an hour, and I almost had to hold my hand down... I wanted to hit her, smack that smiling, helpful face and scream, "How do you do it! What has happened to that part of me!"
Do you want to know the part that frightens me most? The only thing people think about me right now is that I am going through my adolescence! Everyone still sees the smiling Laura Palmer. The girl with perfect grades and perfect hair and perfect little fingers that want to sometimes, late at night, go into the mirror to strangle the daydreaming troublemaker I see in the reflection!
Today I will go to see Donna and I'll talk to her. I'll talk the best I can. I have no schoolwork left to do, and I've already finished two extra-credit projects. I made the honor roll, and the junior debate team. I pray all of the time, but have never felt worse in my life. I am starting to think that a few moments of good, in the middle of miles and ages of bad, is better than no good at all. I hope Donna still wants to be my friend. If I can, I will tell you what happens with Donna.
Soon, Laura
April 24,1986
Something just came to me...
A memory of skipping
I was small, looking up at him
Before he told me to lie down
Or to say things
Before he told me
That opening my mouth was bad
That we had a secret
Before he began to turn me inside
out
With his dirty claws
Before I sat on the tiny hill
We used to skip
Hold hands
Talk about what we saw
He told me what to see
But I didn't see it
I have been blind
I think
Ever since the skipping stopped.
I want to be left alone like other people are. I want to learn about this soft white suit I wear the way everyone else does.
I want to forget the things that suddenly come to me... Something very bad is happening... Why is it happening to me?
I think it is real. I think it is real!
After I see Donna, maybe I can tell you about what I am remembering. I had forgotten so much... but I can't tell if I am better off knowing or not really knowing at all.
Please still be my friend, Donna, please!
L
June 21,1986
Dear Diary,
I spent the day with Donna yesterday. For a long time she wouldn't even really say anything to me. When I started crying, I ran out of her house and just kept running. I was so glad when she came after me, and she was crying too. I told her as much as I could. That I was worried about being good because I had been having bad dreams, very bad dreams, and I wasn't just kidding her when I said I wasn't sleeping at all. I told her I wished we could talk about the night with the guys at the stream, but it always seems like she hates me or something, or I'll have an awful dream and think that what happened was bad. I told her I needed to hear what she thought about that night. I needed to know if she thinks we should be punished for it, or if I should, because I did more than she did... I just needed to know!
Donna told me that she was afraid I wasn't talking to her because I was mad that she hadn't gone as far with the guys as I had, and that I didn't like her anymore because of it! I asked her how she could think that when we had such a nice hug when the evening was over, and I still remember that hug as one of the clearest, nicest parts of the whole night! I told her I was just very confused, and I told her I didn't know half the time whether I should be enjoying it as much as I was, or if I should have been feeling bad.
Donna said the only reason she got out of the water was that she wasn't sure what she felt right doing, even though all of the boys were nice. And then she cried and looked at me, very strange, and said something that really made me feel weird. She said that another reason she didn't get more into it was that she was afraid to because I seemed too good at it right away, and she didn't know what she should be doing, or how to do it. She wanted to know if it just came naturally to me, or if I had been seeing a boy and hadn't told her.
I couldn't answer her for a long time. I don't think I knew the answer. What did she mean, good at it? I told her I remembered feeling sexy, and very happy that they liked me and wanted me, but half of that, if not more, was the boys' doing, not mine. Plus we were drunk that night, and it just felt so good to do things I had wondered about for so long... She stopped me there and said that she thought about boys like that too. I asked her how she thought of them, like what they were doing when she dreamed of them, and she said they were taking her dancing, or seeing her at school and letting her ride in their cars. She said she was thinking about being with older boys who treated her like she was a princess, and at night they would come into this big, beautiful bed and lie next to her, and they would talk and kiss, and sometimes they would make love.
She said she didn't really like going that far because it seemed too rough for the rest of the daydream. She thinks about sex, though, she said. But it is the kind of sex that goes really slow like in soap operas. She said she sees it in slow motion and she can hear music playing, and they roll around, she and this boy, very slow, until it fades out of her head. She said she hoped that my fantasies were as sexy as hers are.
Oh, God, Diary, everything was fine until we talked about that! I just had to tell her that my fantasies were exactly the same as hers, and that we should never have argued, and I said I was sorry if I hurt her feelings. I should have been more open with her, and that I was only worried that she had begun to hate me for going so far that night. She said she thought I was very brave, and that if it felt good to me, then I should think of it as a good thing. But what about the fantasies she has! I was about to die when I heard how pure and sweet and gentle they were. Why doesn't she think the things I do! I was so hoping we had the same thoughts... I was depending on it.
I know she was telling the truth because of how sh
e told me, and by how embarrassed she got when she talked about this boy getting into bed with her. She is so pure, I just can't believe it. I think that the times that I have to go into the woods at night have poisoned me.
I would be like Donna, I'll bet, if I were still just skipping through the trees, instead of... what happens now. But... I would never ever ever wish for what happens now! I wish for things that make me feel sexy and playful, things that don't take me to do all the work, things like someone else trying to please me, instead of me always trying to make everyone else happy.
I wish there was a place you could go where someone would answer all of your questions, and tell you if you were doing the right thing or not. How am I supposed to know when I can't even talk about things really? I just keep saying the same things again and again. I am running in circles, and it is time that I stop.
Donna and I are friends still, and I still love her, but things feel different to me. I can't think the way she does, or even try to anymore. I will think what I feel, and I will try to make people see things the way I do. I wish I had a marijuana cigarette right now. It feels like I haven't laughed for years and years and years.
Thank you for listening.
Laura
June 22,1986
Dear Diary,
I am just going to write and not think too hard about it and maybe I can remember more. I just woke up; it is 4:12 A.M.
The Secret Diary of Laura Palmer Page 5