Regret.

To punish, to thrash, bolt, die, escape, make demands

Choices pooled in your hands, now you're enslaved by commands

How I have failed you. For years, I drew my sword and collided

Ever shackled to the past, to anger young and misguided

I think of you now, and I just miss my little brother

It's amazing how deep, the ways we damage each other.

.....

Every time I tell someone new about it, no matter how I say it, I have another breakdown. They're getting smaller. I guess I usually put it out of my mind.

Fear is Key

The thing you fear the most is the thing you need to do.

For later

When the good times come again, I will not waste a drop. I will remember how desolate the landscape was at this time, and I will take deep breaths of gratitude.

In the meantime, I take small steps. One foot in front of the other. Don't ask me where I'm going, I couldn't tell you.

Things I learned this summer...

1. Don't kiss your favorite office friend. You will lose the friendship. That is the thing that hurts most.

2. Petty, insecure women are the root of everything evil.

3. Confident, kind women are the root of everything good.

4. An inflated sense of self importance is destructive.

5. The pursuit of balance is paramount.

6. You ALWAYS have a choice. Always.

Oh and some legal things. I learned legal things.

A summer boy

I got carried away by your charm and your size

I liked your pajamas, I liked your blue eyes

At the ball game when I spun the wheel for a prize

was it all a disguise?

It must have just been for the thrill of the chase

A secret romance just to feel your heart race

I must have misread that sweet look on your face

but it's hard to erase.

Cherries and popcorn and nights intertwined

It was far fetched to think you could ever be mine

While I won't understand it, with time I'll be fine

but you'll be on my mind.

Unrest

I know that as long as I seek refuge in another person I will not find the peace I seek.

I know that no person can rescue me.

Constantly I realize I hurt myself.

My fleeting heated desires are pain. A tryst will not heal my unrest. Social acceptance, vanity, consumption will not cure this disease.

Sometimes the hardest thing to do is to sit. Alone. In silence.

I am not afraid of being happy. I am not afraid of being alone.

I am, however, afraid of being happy alone, a crippling fear that rules over me.

And maybe I am not in need of rescuing or escape. Maybe I am plainly in need of acceptance and surrender.

I surrender to you, dear life, dear self.

Constantly, I surrender.

The suspension of disbelief, such an innocent principle. Go to a movie, go to a musical, go to a concert, and lose yourself. Lose yourself in the imagery, the costumes, the magical fantasy world you watch. and enjoy yourself. And appreciate the time, work, energy, creativity, talent that went into making these things. And then two hours later, go home and reflect. You were moved. You felt something new, or familiar, or soothing, or raw. And you left your life, your grounded earthly normal life, and flew up above it for a moment. You forgot about your problems, your faults, your limits, your failures, or maybe you found comfort or empathy about these things. and this is all very innocent. and nourishing.

But what if you were to continue to suspend your disbelief for a week? a year? a lifetime? Is reality so terrible, so frightening, so unbearable that you must constantly strive to avoid it at all costs? Are you satisfied here, in never never land? Are you fulfilled? Do you feel loved, appreciated, seen, understood, worthwhile? Do you want to feel these things? or maybe all of these things are exactly the monsters you're hiding from.

I'm a little cryptic. I'm a little lost. I'm a little jealous. I'm a little jaded. I have no interest in being swept away from my life. My life is too short. and I don't want to miss it. I want to be known, deeply. I want to love and to be loved and to build. and I can't pretend there's not pain. To fully live my life is to embrace the pain. Sometimes I wish I could just forget like you. Detach. Break off into pieces and leave the hurt pieces in a room, locked and hidden from the part of me that floats around dancing and flirting and smiling and dreaming.

and sometimes I just think, maybe you're onto something. We live and die alone at the end of the day. We lose everything eventually, and it's true: life is so hard and unbearably dull sometimes. Why not make believe it's just a pretty picture?

Maybe it's a solid plan. Until I think about the end. The certain death we have to face. Reality hunts us down, and even if just for a moment, it seizes us, clings tightly onto our hearts, and you must see it. But at that inevitable point it's too late to do anything about the fact that you have nothing to show for your life. and to me, that moment would be more terrifying than all these difficult things along the way combined.

It's worth it to live here in reality. It's hard. It's complicated. It's boring sometimes. and maybe you would just suck at it ultimately. But at the end you can still say you tried. and you lived. and you were honest.

I miss my life. So it makes me ramble.

signing off, from dance camp, the land of the lost.

People like us, we get by through the day,

Surviving the city way better than most.

We go through the motions from nightcap to nightcap

Here but not here, with the heart of a ghost.

People like us we meet up some night

In a room full of strangers who call themselves friends.

It feels like a dream but it's too hard to tell

Where the dream begins and the real world ends