[without-moonlight]

i have won a thousand thousand lotteries in my few years. a part of me was at the betting table, taking loans against a future i didn't even know i had. i've made out so well with it all, only to find that there is no philanthropy of traits.

i am a mother, a good friend, an old soul, a giver of sage advice, and all before i am eighteen. these titles have been given to me, and my name has grown long as a prince's. but long ago the words fell apart, and my belief is no longer suspended. it is so impossible for a person with such a cleft heart to be so grand. i deny them, even as i know they are based in fact. i cannot accept that my misery is just as ingrained a trait as the others.

i remember spending hours in trances, letting movies and books hypnotize me into caring. the hero was always so selfless, and had so many friends. the promise of companionship is such an intoxicating thing. i give everything i can and still feel like an imposter, as if i can stun them into staying by giving so much. they always leave.

and then i am alone again. people make such a spiderweb of their relationships, and i am left so perfectly puzzled into the middle of them; i am unable to move and yet i disappear with ease. i leave, and yet i go nowhere.

[without-moonlight]

i am lonely and i have no excuse. people i love are at my fingertips and i clench my fists. my loneliness is made a prison by anxiety, so careful not to scare off those who i have tricked into loving me.

i am lonely because i feel like nobody else wants to love as much as i do, and when i feel this i scream at myself that i could never be the most in anything. 

 i am lonely because i am a case-in-point extrovert with wounds that desperately need to be taken care of, but who doesnt know how to ask or where to point. i wish the scars under my eyes would fade so i could cry again. 

 i am lonely when i think you are pretty, because all i imagine is your disgust at my thinking of you. all i want to do is hear the flowers blossom in your lungs as you sleep. i wish i could think of love without feeling like you will see it as betrayal. we were such good friends, you said. i just want to feel trusted, nothing more.

i am lonely because i feel like i am healing, and i am afraid that i will lose my empathy when i am too far removed from my sickness. sickness is too often half of what we have in common.

i am lonely and it makes me wish i could stop caring, because every time someone cat-cradles my heartstrings, i force myself to cut them. it’s my fault they got so tangled in the first place, and i would never want them to inconvenience such a lovely person. i spend my time alone, tying them back together for the next person i wish i could look at.

i am lonely because love only comes to those who are vulnerable. i so desperately want to be vulnerable, but i dont want to press my vulnerability into the hands of the unwilling. i am always willing, but i tell myself again that not everyone is me. 

[without-moonlight]

I think it's an amazing display of your growth as a person that you're asking the "big questions". Don't get stuck in your head though. As you said, there's no time frame so take as long as you need to figure yourself out. Good luck, my friend. <3

Thank you so much! Sometimes you ask the big questions, and sometimes the big questions are thrust upon you. Updating more again tomorrow.

[without-moonlight]

Introspection doesn't have a time frame. So many ponder themselves through life, even in the early years. I wish I'd had the forethought to ask myself the big questions way back in third grade. Who am I? Who do I want to be? What have I neglected about myself?

[without-moonlight]

Avarice is the hallmark of insecurity. So many see the wealthy strut, and scowl at their pride. But hubris is their only tatter of confidence; Without their glamour and gossamer, they melt into uncertainty. So tragic the plight of the wealthy, whose meals and warmth are given.

[without-moonlight]

The old man who lives next door, he does not talk much. He does not have much to say anymore, I suppose. But I spoke to him once as he moved cans from the front of his mailbox. He told me it was a federal crime, for the garbage men to do that. He seemed afraid of everything that was out of line. I saw in his eyes, years of hurt. Years of being pushed into line, in a way that made the world frightening when it did not fall in line too. I wonder if I could read on his face, in that moment, the collection of stories that brought him there.

[without-moonlight]

Weaver's Ailment

She picks apart the world, thread by thread. She sees each strand, laid out before her yet to be magnificently woven into fine fabric. The world was never finished, after all. There are loose ends, here and there. But she knows, above all else, not to tug on those. She replaces threads, on occasion, with new ones that deceive the humans below. A flicker, almost not there, in the corner of their eyes. Their hair obstructs their view as she plays with the light. They cannot see. They will not see. And the weaver, for all her artistry, is forgotten.

[without-moonlight]

The paper towel roll stands upright, dutiful and present like so few. The designs on it like flowers betray the messes predestined for it. And yet, it stays even as I peel off bits to clean things of no relation to it. It stays as it is slowly degraded, beaten, battered, peeled, stripped. Its flowers are chipper as ever even to the brown bone underneath.

[without-moonlight]

The rain is falling again. I lay in my dark room, covered by the thick sheets, and have no sound but the rain’s whimsy. The pitter patter drumbeats come in every rhythm all at once and yet I hear the songs I know. Bespeckled with water, it is waiting in the dawn and I climb onto the roof for the first time. I slip and slide, but look out at the sun and think only of the rain.

[without-moonlight]

Another Kiss of Relevance

I sit in the bright bus, shining prisms of color to the outside, lighting the water droplets in their tangential and swirling dance. The light that comes from the bus, though it does not know it, will caress the mist in a way that it has not felt since sunset, and in a way that it will not feel until the sun rises again. And yet, it passes in an instant. The bus screeches past, and the flaming white prisms go with it. A few chosen, lucky droplets are taken with it, in the coriolis of forgotten velocity. But most stay behind, waiting the long cold night for another touch, another kiss of relevance. It is the bus, passing like time, that sheds recognition on their lost, varied forms.

[without-moonlight]

Preventative Grieving

My cat and my dog died within a month a few years back. The dog, raised by the open fields… she felt imprisoned by the metropolis we had moved to. The cat adjusted well, as his prey skittered the floorboards of barn and house alike. They were both wizened as time, as I came to appreciate them, though long coats hid the wrinkles.

And I remember one day, at twelve years old. I sat and watched them. She didn’t run anymore. She slept and she shivered. He didn’t walk like he used to. He limped and he creaked. I knew they were not long. And sitting there, I let go.

Not half a year later was that fated month. They both left the house, for better or worse fates that none can know. And I didn’t cry. My mother, tear-tracks carving down her face, she hugged me. I hid with her, so as not to show my lack of tears. It wasn’t natural. But I’d done my grieving months back. And I looked up at my mother, and watched her. Her face was not so taut as before. Her hair frayed and grayed. I thought of my father too. His smile slowly becoming pained. His fingers slowing, jerking. I knew they might be long, but not so long as I had thought. And I let go.

[without-moonlight]

Light that Blinds

The mind is but a dark room, and the lights inside are constructed over a lifetime. Carefully many are made, but others are a slapdash and ramshackle of necessity. Many take years of practice and expertise to craft, like fine neuronic chandeliers, and others are cold, white fluorescent scars that affix themselves to the ceiling, seeming harshen the environment with presence alone. A symphony, or a book, or a conversation, or a very particular smell, will light up these fixtures in a way that lays out patterns bright and clear. So many are affixed enough by their own lights to notice others, but only from the outside looking in can one truly escape the darkness.

[without-moonlight]

we four sit together in the dark room and listen to a fifth and a sixth, not with us tonight. they decide our future, and schedule the coming years. they script the act and the playwrights of our own stories no longer get to be ourselves. they've never met us. robert says he's moving to new zealand. i don't think it's quite that bad.

[without-moonlight]

Terminal Mass

I can see the whole world on the terminal. All the varied certainty of the script, laid out to be the reality of the screen. I have control like I have never before had. All I must do is learn how to speak.

[without-moonlight]

Window Frame

The effervescent shop window clouded with mist and ice on a frozen afternoon casts a perfect, white light onto the gaudy shoes. The illusion of ownership and the light alone cause my wallet to make up its mind before I have the chance to think.

[without-moonlight]

Clipped Wings

The butterfly in your chest that you were born with is what allows you to fly. So many have been through a lot, but oftentimes they still beat to the rhythm. I feed mine milk and honey every day, and it's doing its best to learn.

[without-moonlight]

I made 614 smiles today, and counting. I knew maybe ten of those people. I've never seen the six hundred sets of teeth that saw the daylight because I put pen to paper. It took me ten minutes to make, and at the time I didn't think it was worth it