So you have to go talk to some guy in markarth after you find the kaliah or whatever her name is. except all the guards in markarth try to kill me, and i can't "pay off my dept" or bribe them off, so... idk what to do.

If you can't do the time, don't do the crime!

>.> it was a quest, and now it won't even let me serve time for my crimes, it just resets the dialogue options leaving me with "I'd rather die" as the only option that does anything. if you say "yeah okay take me to jail" they just say goodbye" and takes you back to the dialogue options. bugs. ugh.

That sounds like the bug that Markarath has, that it doesn't erase the bounty. If you have an earlier save before whatever bounty you commited you might want to load that up, otherwise you'll have to run to get the item or kill all the guards.