before i can convince myself otherwise

     ...before I can swallow my words, before I can pretend they never existed, I'm going to speak my mind, in the only way I know how.

So maybe I've made a lot of mistakes. Maybe the damage is done, and maybe it's irreparable. But I won't, I can't, go on dwelling upon what's happened, and I definitely won't look at it in a bad way. It was a valuable experience - and possibly merely a memory - and, most importantly, it was a lesson, both of life and of people.  

It's been four years. It feels like yesterday, but it really has been years since I've allowed myself to open up, years since I've trusted myself to feel. And as time dragged on, I'd started to wonder if I would ever be able feel so deeply again. I'd started to become cynical, bitter, even.

So maybe it wasn't particularly special, or even pleasant, but there were moments, and I'll look back on them well. Because they happened, I've learned to have more faith. 

Maybe it won't work out. Maybe you're really just not it. But I think it'll be okay. Somewhere out there, there will be another, eventually, into whose arms I can fall and with whom I may spend nights sifting through quiet conversation. I won't look for it, but if - no, when - it comes, I definitely won't push it away, either. I'll let it consume me, and if it burns out, well. I'll have come out all the wiser.

We're still living; we might as well embrace life.

the art of getting by.

TODAY...

nomakeupfacewhee

hazelnut iced coffee on my desk upon waking up;

skype date with one of the most important people in my life.

♥

sunshine, friends, and family do the soul a world of good;

the slow but steady recovery from sophomore year.

too much caffeine.

Head rush: shudder, fitful impulses skittering down capillaries, hustled by staccato pulse. Thoughts racing, half-formed notion and deformed emotion swirl and swell; the cavity deep within the chest fills to capacity, overflow. Amass and multiply, erode and scatter. Eyes close, mind scrabbling for footholds on the slick terrain of consciousness, sense on overdrive. Breathe in, breathe out - still breathless. The heart seems fit to burst.

catharsis.

Thanks for listening.  I'm sorry I'm so difficult.

It's harder at home.  I'm surrounded by reminders of what life was like before I seized upon escape; the cornerstones of the listless dream-state I was trapped in for 17 years.  And I'm sorry I reacted so strongly, but I hate when people tell me that they understand or that they had it worse.  It's not comforting.  Yes, maybe people had worse childhoods, but mine was its own kind of hell.  So I wasn't starving or endangered, but it was an existence in which I had so very little say that I resorted to starving myself in an attempt to gain some sort of control over my life.  There are some people who would be okay with the life I was forced to live, but I loathed it enough to turn to extreme measures.  No, there is no one who could quite understand the way my mind ate itself alive.

You're right though.  There are still demons, far more than I'm willing to admit, from my past within me, and they're still chewing away at me from the inside out.  There is so much bitterness and fear, festering, and yet I'm reluctant to purge those negative feelings, because they're all I know.

My apprehension grows with every step I take forward.  Where once I flung my parents warnings heedlessly back in their indignant faces, now I waver, their words ringing in my mind as the harshness of reality threatens my waning naïveté.

THIS SUMMER

inhale

          ...his exhale.  the radiating heat, the scent.

               brow to brow, nose to nose, nerves tingling.

                    eyelashes fluttering, heartbeat in your throat, hand in hand.

                        skin, dry and smooth; take a peek, the flash of a smile;
                                  sensation, curling in your abdomen.

                              it's so warm.  the world is glowing.

wanderlust.

     heartache;, clench, the sweet release

               shiver;, ripple goosebumps against the heat 

                    the seconds skitter - -   where do they go?

it's just this gut feeling.

To some degree, my mother is superstitious. She possesses an innate intuition, a sixth sense if you will, that regardless of whether it is heeded or not, has an uncanny tendency to be right on point.

I may not have her good sense, and I most certainly do not hope to claim that my intuitions are always, or even often, right, but there have definitely been moments in which I could empathize. Somewhere, between observation and a gradually polished understanding of humanity and life journeys, there is this knowing. The ties that hold the universe together become almost tangible in your mind, and you can feel the tender fragility, the brittle cracks that line the fabric. And you can feel, at the bottom of your consciousness, in your heart, the stretching tension, and when it hits that point of breaking. But it sucks in a way, knowing. You may know, but eventually you will realize there is usually little you can do to change the course of fate.

Something changed last Saturday. But the worst part isn't what changed; it's that I knew that it was going to happen. I knew, as I sat beside you, as I hugged you good-bye, as I closed the door behind me, and all I could do was step back and watch it happen. And now time is careening forward, and I can feel this tiny wisp of red thread slipping through my fingers.

So what now? I've thrown down all my cards. It's time you play yours.

if i close my eyes i'll see you
hear your footsteps in the rain
in my dream i'll never find you
but i hear you call my name