Dear Logan,

I learned a new psychology term today:

PSYCHOLOGICAL INTEGRATION:
The process during which all alter-
personalities are accepted into the
Original Personality as her character traits.
The Professor says I need to be more assertive with you all. That I need to take control. I wonder if he suspects. Sometimes, I just quit. The day seems to run too long, or that telltale headache starts and I know I'm in for another grand soliloquy from Erik. So, I turn inward and curl up into myself. Kind of like going to sleep, only there are no disturbances, and no remembrances. Just a blank space. Lost time. I like being able to check-out on command. Erik takes advantage of it. He knows if he pushes hard enough, I'll let him drive. It's caused some problems, I guess. Which is why I spent all morning in the Professor's office going over techniques to integrate the lot of you. I won't do it. I won't lose you, Logan.

Xavier says that since there are no documented cases similar to mine, we'd start with a few loose theories pertaining to Dissociative Identity Disorder, or as it was called a few years back, Multiple Personality Disorder. I looked it up on the internet, spent a couple nights searching. I don't really sleep anymore, just go away and let one of you take over if I get tired. Anyway, I read a lot of psyche-bullshit, then found a few pages that took different views. Did you know that if I was an Aborigine, or some other native people, I wouldn't be wearing this label of "crazy?" My people would think I was inhabited by spirits or channeling the divine. Instead of making me stop, they'd treat me as holy and teach me the limits of my gifts. All of Xavier's speeches about gifts and mutant blessings is a lie. If he truly believed in what he says, he'd be helping me find an on/off switch. For you all, for my power. Instead, he just wants to turn me off. He's been blowing smoke up my ass since the day I stepped into his kingdom. And I thought you were such a good judge of character. There's also a few listings of people who are happily not integrated. They develop a sort of unity, a bond between all of them. They call themselves "households." And their goal is to get a common thread of memory and communication between all the members. I tried to bring that up to the Professor, but he's having none of it. You all do not belong in my head, I deserve a chance to be Marie. Uh-huh. I haven't been Marie since you left.

A small part of me thinks that maybe the Professor is right. I need to get a better grip on you all. Especially Erik. It seems that the more time one of you spends in control, the more powerful you grow. Each time, it gets a little harder to wake up. I can direct which one is in charge usually, if I pick you up and pull you out before I sleep. David isn't dealing well with all this Mutant High: After School Special shit. I come back after him, and find my arms cut up. I don't know what he's doing it with, he's really good at hiding things, and my stolen knife is still clean. I can't fault his coping mechanisms, after all, look at mine. He feels better and worse at the same time. It's been so long since I touched him, and he's still there. I don't think he'll ever be free. That scares him, that lack of ending. He's no longer afraid of dying. Yet, at the same time, he's full of fear. The fear of phasing. Like Kitty, only he can't go solid. A ghost. I actually got a laugh out of him the other day when I made a joke about "giving up the ghost." The concept changes in our context, doesn't it?

I wish you'd talk to me again. Was a time, you wouldn't shut up. Now you hardly say a word. Was a time you wanted the end, now you couldn't stand to leave. I know you wrestle Erik sometimes, when he gets too out of control. I know you don't do anything much, but sulk around and stick to the shadows. You want that intangibility. You like being noncorporeal. Time passes you more swiftly if you take the seconds with silence. It doesn't work that way for me. I wish it did, I don't like fighting to wake up. Though, I'll admit, I do often hope that this time, I won't. That makes you angry. Mr. Summers thinks you lack any emotion but anger. He's so unbelievably wrong. If I could cry anymore, I'd cry at the injustice of that. If he only knew the deep waters inside you. The fire that rages through. He'd be awed by your control, by your strength. I certainly am. Jean is. Is that why you won't talk to me anymore? She isn't mad about that time in the hall, you know. She understands you have urges, and you've a harder time controlling them when it's my hands. It's okay, Logan. Just a little grab-ass along the wall. She's forgiven you. She'll always forgive you. Sometimes I see her looking at me out of the side of her eye, like she's trying to gauge who's in charge. One time, I pretended to be you. She wandered over, asking me if I was okay, how my chemistry assignment was shaping up. Funny thing, she doesn't really do that when it's just me.

I still hate her, you know. You want her so much, you make me want her. I don't want to want her. I don't want to know how my hands would fit in the damp spaces just beneath her breasts. I don't want to wonder if she tastes as spicy as she smells. It's not right for me to want. I'm still mad at you, too. Don't think I've forgotten. But I can almost think about forgiveness. It gets easier as time goes on and no more letters show up. It would get gone if you would just come out and talk to me. I could bait you, you know. I know what you like. Sometime after class, I could push her against her desk and grind my thigh between her legs. Push my palms against the flesh of her breasts. That'd get your attention. I could bite her neck, just enough to taste blood on my teeth. Could you resist that? Would you stop me? Would you become me? Who's fingers would feel her cum? Who's name would she call? If I did that, would you talk to me? Will you, just to keep me from doing it? Would you make me keep the gloves on? I do wonder.

                         Love,
                         Marie