Dawn

I bottle everything up, I keep my emotions hidden under layers of insecurities that I have carefully aligned, I pretend I am okay, that those feelings will never have the power to affect me, It is not healthy I know but I do not want to be a burden, I do not want to have people worried about me. It is a way of life that I have constantly chosen; I took my time to learn how to pretend to be strong, I became good at pretending. I became so good that after a while the lines blurred between my truth and fiction. And sometimes, when I did a really good job of pretending, I even fooled myself.

I spin the bottle in my brain trying to match the weakness with a name, but one side of the bottle is always facing towards my name, "Do not worry, there must have been a mistake" I tell myself as I anxiously spin the bottle again, as I do over and over again, it will always choose to land on my name. But I keep going through this battle in my head, hoping somehow things will change and point at someone else, hoping I can find a way through this bottleneck.

I fill my glass with whiskey which has been a good friend of mine recently, I drink until I am seeing double, but it only shows me how lonely I am, twice. The deepest feelings always come after the things you do to make yourself feel numb. I never asked to be the hero of my story, and I never wanted to be the villain. My brain made me both and neither at the same time.

I stay home all the time; I tell my friends that I am busy when in reality I cannot handle the truth of leaving the bed. Trapped in my own mind; slow-moving traffic in my brain I want so desperately to get out of but I cannot find the nearest exit. I am stuck. I lay my head on my tear-stained pillows as I tremble with fear. Fear that I will never make my way out of this, that if I find the next exit I will end up in the same place, that there is no right exit, it does not exist. My desire for knowledge is intermittent, but my desire to bathe my head in atmospheres unknown to my feet is perennial and constant.

I am way past keeping track of who hurt me last, it does not burn anymore. My heart can no longer shatter when it has not been pieced together in a long time. I guess you do not realize how quickly everything can fall apart until it does. Maybe you have to know the darkness before you can appreciate the light. Perhaps, one should understand that the mind is its own place, and itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.

I have locked rooms in my head that I would not look into. I do not remember what lies behind those doors anymore, I have a faint memory of what I subconsciously did to protect myself. I wonder if there is anything in those rooms or are they unoccupied?. Maybe I will never know, maybe I will never find enough words to fill all those empty spaces in my sentences, maybe a part of me will always be hollow, an empty room.

I am sad and have a passion for unknown, distant places. I want to see the world. And I would love it if I just had the chance to get away for a little while. But sadly, things are not that easy; desire will not change a thing. The world goes on spinning around whether I like it or not. How do I feel? I feel alone. I feel guilty. I feel hurt. But how is it that I feel all of those feelings, and still feel nothing?. I think I am afraid to be happy because whenever I feel happy, something bad always happens.

Eternity is a long time to wallow in guilt. I am guilty, it is not my sins that I hate but myself. Guilt is not always a rational thing; It is a weight that will crush you whether you deserve it or not. It may not have been entirely my fault, but I could not feel innocent of it. And I wonder, would not we all be guilty if someone searched hard enough?. We might be, but the answer to that question will never seem to alter the way I identify with guilt.

The more people I meet the lonelier I become. No one gets me. They cannot relate, and I do not understand them. I speak and they look at me with blank stares. I try to put my hearts' feelings and my thoughts into words and they perceive completely alien views. They are lost, they do not get it. I do not get them and I feel even more alone. So I decided to be alone. I thought that maybe some voids were not meant to be filled. It hurts less not to try. I am learning how to be alone without being lonely. Learning how to be lonely without losing my mind.

I do not know who I am anymore, I am lost. I have started again and again, but I feel like running against the same walls in my head. Pain is what inks my pen, writing stories of what remains, of the happiness turned to pain. This pain is how I know I am awake. I wish I could write, I get these emotions but I never seem to be able to put them into words. I need my soul to distend from my body and float away and be free, to fly and drown and burn and feel everything and nothing at the same time.

There is no real me, only an entity, something illusory, and though I can hide my cold gaze and you can shake my hand and feel flesh gripping yours and maybe you can even sense our lifestyles are comparable; I simply am not there. I am my own ghost haunting the memories I cherish the most. I see nothing but walls standing in my way. And now I am told that this is life, that pain is a simple compromise.

I probably still have not completely adapted to this world. I do not know, I feel like this is not the real world. The people, the conversations, the places; they just do not seem real to me. I can see myself falling out of my skin over and over again. It was never about me versus the world. It was about me versus myself.

I am starting to believe that life is meaningless altogether, most of the time. Life is just life; a mystery I will always try to figure out and eventually I never do. I would never feel complete, but It was not the feeling of completeness I so needed, but the feeling of not being empty. We are each alone inside our heads, some more than others. I feel worthless; I wonder why someone like me was born into this world.

I know nothing and my heart aches. I over-analyze things because I am scared of what will happen if I am not prepared for it. I have spent my whole life terrified, scared of things that could go wrong, things that might happen, things that might not. Running in circles; I could not be with people and I did not want to be alone, I could not be genuinely happy and I did not want to feel down, I wanted to change who I became and I could not let go of the new person I became. I was imprisoned for my thoughts. And albeit I had the keys, I was not sure if I desired to leave.

I have embraced the dawn of summer. Dawn walked in blue and diamonds. Though my soul may set in darkness, it will rise in perfect light; I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night. It is a fitting punishment for a monster. To want something so much - to hold it in your arms, and know beyond a doubt you will never deserve it. And as the sun starts to break through the darkness comes a sunrise with a bright glimpse of hope. Hope is a very dangerous thing, it can drive a man insane. But the sun will rise and we will try again.

Attrapeur de rêves

I have always been good at waiting,
for something that was not going to happen.
It seemed like a sad and awful thing to be good at.
I was waiting for you,
without knowing it.
I would wait for you,
because it will always be you.
I missed you,
and at the same time I was happy, isn't that strange?
Part of me is mad I write you into my stories,
because I can no longer read them without falling in love,
and breaking my heart at the same time.
But part of me is delighted that I do,
because it reminds me of how beautiful our love was,
even if it destroyed me.
I feel like wherever I go,
I will always have a strange sense of sadness in me.
Hiding in every smile,
stopping me from laughing as truly and as fully as I could.
There's so much stubborn hope in my heart,
it often disobeys common sense,
throwing tantrums at my brain.
I guess that's how it feels when you have a rebellious heart,
you often feel like you're holding your heart back,
hiding it away.
And when at last you find someone to whom you feel you can pour your heart into,
you give your heart away.
And when you do,
you usually get it back in pieces and fragments,
And often, a great deal of time passes before you realize that every piece was not returned to you -and probably will never be.
You crave nothing but to get those missing vital fragments back,
to return to the unbroken, undamaged version of yourself.
But what has been broken cannot be unbroken,
and so all you can do is learn to live with the void of the missing pieces,
to somehow find beauty in the wreckage.
You don't get explanations in life,
you just get moments that are absolutely, utterly, inexplicably odd.
I promised myself not to fall in love,
but you set a light in my heart and mind,
the most beautiful chaos.
I am trying to remember you,
and let you go,
at the same time.
I do not know what I am more afraid of:
to see you again,
or to never see you again.
Maybe I was not good enough,
or so I think so it does not hurt your fairly fragile ego.
I know I am not easy to be loved,
but I tried to be different,
I tried so hard,
for you.
It breaks my heart that I can't stop loving and even though all you do is hurt me,
it's not always just the heart,
sometimes your mind breaks as well,
and I have lost my mind,
trying to understand yours.
There's nothing I can do and it is a never-ending agony,
I sit here and tell myself that I have got to move on,
that I need to start making myself happy,
that you truly do not matter and that I can be without you.
Then I fall asleep and dream of you,
wake up in tears and it's like everything I have been telling myself is completely forgotten.

I miss you in ways I didn't know existed,

being alone was never hard before I met you.
And now, the world is too quiet without you nearby,
My heart is bleeding so badly that it feels my body is slowly shutting down,
I feel empty,
not sad, not angry, just empty.
And this feeling is so overwhelming,
it takes over every single nerve of my body,

until I feel it every fucking where.
Maybe that's it,
we eventually go numb.
And after all what we have been through,
when I think of falling in love you're still the first name that comes to my mind.
We were never meant for each other,
but I am glad that even for a sheer moment it felt like we were.
In another universe,
destiny did not separate us,
where I belonged to you and you belonged to me.
Right now,
my heart is there with you.
He had flaws,
but what does it matter when it comes to the heart?
The heart wants what it wants,
reason does not enter into it.
We fall in love with personality,
the words they say,
and their behavior,
the thoughts and opinions,
the moments you make and remember.
We lust with our eyes and love with our hearts.
We fall in love with the sight of their souls.
And I loved you,
I got lost in you,
and it was the kind of lost that is exactly like being found.
I hope someday you will find all my letters,
all my quotes,
all my words,
and read them all.
I hope you will know that they are all about you.
And so it means I must always write you these letters that I can never send,
And I wonder,
If the world could give us an opportunity to take all the chances we missed,
to relive the moments we loved so much.
Would you take my hand and try again?
Would you want to try again?

Blue

All good things come to an end,
I prefer beginnings,
endings are often sad.
Life isn't that simple,
and somehow I always mess things up.
I found myself in late night drives,
often without a destination.
Along the tangled roads of an eerie city,
I found tranquility.
We all have our reasons,
to justify our loneliness.
And sometimes all you want is to forget,
when forgetting is no longer an option,
it becomes a method of survival.
There's really no shortcut to forgetting someone,
you just have to endure missing them everyday,
until you don't anymore.
We were lovers,
but now we cannot be friends.
We loved with a love that was more than love,
it outgrown us,
eventually destroying everything we could ever have.
I miss the way it used to be,
there were things I wanted to tell you,
but I knew they would hurt you,
so I buried them,
and let them hurt me instead.
And now I am running out of ways to numb the pain,
Because I held on for too long,
hoping we'll be alright.
Is there no way out of the mind?
I miss you deeply, unfathomably, senselessly, terribly.
Sometimes I think we were just stupid lovers,
loving each other til we lose our minds.
I wanted it so much,
but apparently the world isn't a wish-granting factory.
They told me to stay away from the ones I love too much,
those are the ones who will destroy me.
You always said that I am the one who knocked down people around me,
but it has always been you,
you ruin anyone who would come close to you.
And maybe we are just like the sun and the moon,
deeply in love with each other,
but too different to exist side by side.
But what hurts is that we never really said goodbye,
we just kind of ended.
And now I am trying to forget you as I wait for you to come back.
Sometimes the pain of love is more fulling than the ache of loneliness;
if you want the rainbow,
you have to deal with the rain.
I still notice you, I want to say.
Even when no one else does,
I will.
There's something godly yet sinful about loving you,
I lost myself so many times that I don't know who I am anymore,
like a shadow,
I am and I am not.
There are a few things in life so beautiful they hurt:
swimming in the ocean while it rains,
reading alone in empty libraries,
the sea of stars that appear when you are miles away from the neon lights of the city,
streets after 2 am,
walking in the wilderness,
all the phases of the moon,
the things we do not know about the universe,
and you.
You had a soft spot for me,
like a bruise,
so sensitive,
it beckons me to touch.
You were a hopeless romantic,
searching for peace,
in a world full of insanity.
If what we had was love,
why does it hurt so much?
All I can think about is you;
the way you sat in the passenger seat,
you would adjust the seat,
change the radio station,
and sing along to songs I don't know.
I fell in love with you on one of those drives,
while the sunset is lighting up your eyes,
and all I could think about was you.
Sometimes we want what we want,
even if we know it's going to kill us.
All suffering originates from craving,
from attachment,
from desire.
And we were the dreamers of dreams,
we dreamed of a different kind of life,
of a new fresh start for both of us.
But all endings are also beginnings,
we just don't know it at the time.
Maybe you do not want to be alone but you are tired of being lied to,
used,
and thrown aside when you are no longer convenient.
Maybe you have suffered one too many heartbreaks from boyfriends or best friends or parents,
maybe you want to depend on someone but there's no one left,
no one,
except yourself.
And maybe you will call one day to tell me to stop writing about you,
and I will tell you I will,
when you stop inspiring me.

Reverie

I wish we knew back then that being scared wasn't a bad thing. That change and growth and something greater all begin at the tiptoes of what we know for sure, at the very fine edges of our comfort zone. Leaving home with shaky feet and hiding from people with mischievous smiles. Cities and straws and the raw gnaw of hunger in your gut. In your soul, even, screaming out for more than you can carry. It looks like this: you in the corner of a bright yellow room with a shelf full of dreams collecting dust in each pocket. Me at the crack of the window, chipping paint from the walls of a place we've outgrown. Too big for our shoes. Too ambitious for our peers. Hot blood in our veins on a race to our brains and our legs and our arms and the pits of our stomachs. I wish someone had sat us down and held our hands to our hearts, wild and young enough to crash without breaking, and I wish they had said, "Feel that, kiddo? The chaos? That's how you know you are headed somewhere good".

I wish we knew how to deal with this strong, innate desire we held deep in our souls to learn things on our own. An everlasting fire that we could not put out. Propelling our curious and doubtful souls into seas of unfamiliarity. Our only fear was not being strong enough to go through our long, unconstructed voyages. But we never looked back. We have learned early on in life to never surrender. It was the only thing we knew. We learned to build our strength through every sleepless night. Everything that we went through only made us grow bigger. All the bits and pieces are adding up to make us the people who we are destined to be. Maybe perfection is in trying. Maybe we are not meant to be perfect. I wish I could tell you everything is going to be okay, but the truth is I am not sure. I never will be. But along the tangled paths of life, I have learned that the only way to survive is to let go of doubts and keep moving forward. Survival is a talent we strongly embrace.

The bravest people I know are the ones who are totally shattered inside. But they will smile at you and at everyone else, as they walk alone past you and everyone else. At some point, all we need is courage. Whatever course you decide upon, there's always someone to tell you that you are wrong. There are always difficulties arising that tempt you to believe your critics are right. To map out a course of action and follow it to an end requires you to be fearless. To reach a state of peace and tranquility one's frontline soldier should be no one but themselves. As we grow as unique persons, we learn to be more independent and self-reliant. The journey is never-ending. There's always going to be growth, improvement, and adversity. You just have to take it all in and do what's right, continue to grow.

Life is all about evolution. What looks like a mistake to others has been a milestone in my life. We are human and we make mistakes, but learning from these mistakes is what makes the difference. My journey in life and yours have led us to both dark and light places, and it's because of those experiences we have learned how to work through the defects of our characters and how to grow bigger and wiser. I believe that we have been lucky to go through everything how we did. The way we grasped onto life with our nervous, moist hands ever since we were little. The way we used the word 'impossible' with great caution. The way we held our head up despite all the people around us trying to bring us down. Our hearts are too big to be broken. Our souls are too bold to be torn. Champions are made, not born. And we choose to be heroes of ourselves. Heroes of our own life story.

Ink

Dear Friend,

I think you deserve the world but somewhere along the road, you've been beaten way too many times. I know how you've been feeling today. Your life feels empty, and the sad truth is that you don't have anybody to blame for anything that's happened. Unlike most people, you haven't blamed yourself, because you know you have done everything in your capacity to make things work, to make things happen. I know how ambitious you are, and you do everything you need to do to make your parents proud, to make them happy again. You have no one to share your pain with. Mainly since your pain isn't because of some tragic accident or loss of life, neither is it because of a sappy breakup or a nasty flu.

And I think life has a way of hitting you a little harder in the morning than it does at night. You see at night, there is this chance of sleep. Of forgetting. Of something better. But in the morning? It all hits you at once when you realize exactly where things are at, it slams you down into your bed as you watch a recap of all the highlights of the things you were trying to forget.

And you can feel your true self breaking down a little bit more with every passing day. There's so much that you want to do and you know you have it in you, yet it's always a dead end. But you will survive this. One of these days you are going to have to learn not to be afraid. What good are wonderful days if you spend them worrying they won't last? That's a regretful waste, isn't it?.

You look back in time and see a different version of yourself, someone you can’t recognize now. You have no idea how to define yourself anymore. You were a social maniac and have always found yourself the most comfortable among people, lots and lots of people, friends, foes, family, strangers and you managed to plant a seed of memory into everyone you’ve ever met.

Now you’re uncomfortable to be around people, you repel even making a healthy eye contact with someone passing by. I know you aren’t scared or tense to interact with them - to ask how they’re doing, but you’ve lost the urge to make bonds anymore.

You’ve met all kinds of people, seen through each one of them but you’ve realized that no matter how well you know and understand them, you walk right into a boulder beyond which you cannot see, beyond which you know there’s a spot where all their weaknesses lie, and you peek between the brick walls and recoil back - you have seen the ugly side.

This side of them is nasty and no matter what is said or done following it, you’ve lost your trust, you just can’t go back to square one all over again. You know you can never be the same with them again. And as you walk away from them, you know they’ve taken off a small chunk out of you. These chunks total up to the whole of you and you lose yourself running away from them. You cannot risk losing anymore. So you walk alone, and every day you die a little more.

You now focus on the few people you trust and you’d do anything for them. I know very well how greatly you suck at expressing your love towards these people, somehow you feel that if you reveal it to them you’ll lose the love you have for them, they’re eager and hope to hear it from you. Your family wants to hear you say that you love them. But you just cannot, because you’ve never learned how to. You’ve never told anyone confidently the way they show it movies, to confess love. You love them too much, it’s scary to say it out loud. But you show it in ways nobody ever does.

You have your own weird ways, only if they could listen. Only if they could listen when you scream at them and cry out of guilt the very next moment, when you swear at them now and internally curse yourself next, when you ignore them because you do not want to say you’re sorry, when you plan big to see them happy, when you struggle to smile even as you’re dying inside only so that they don’t sense your sadness.

You are scared to express that you are vulnerable and you are scared to admit that you are scared. You prefer to be an emotionless robot to them because you’ll never be able to prove how much you really care. They distance themselves from you naturally, and again, you die a little bit inside.

But you know you’re amazing at being a lion/ess when you want to, your wounds make you stronger and that’s how you like seeing yourself - a lion/ess on the hunt. And you walk with all your pride as you walk by the people that you’d rather have by your side, again you die a little inside, yet you walk alone with all your pride.

So this is a letter to open your eyes to what you can achieve, to all the dreams you can still make true. The world is yours to conquer. It's out there waiting for you. You know that it's never too late and that you can do the impossible. I will always believe in you.

Loads of love,

Your friend.

Initiation

Whenever we fail to make a decision, we fail to grow.

As we approach each of life’s proverbial forks in the road, we are not faced merely with two potential courses of action; rather, as many as four choices appear in front of us at each fork.

The right path. Often the correct decision is glaring: the right path is illuminated, clear for miles, obvious to everyone. Whenever this is the case, seize the opportunity—take the right path.

The wrong path. There are some paths that are blatantly incorrect, filled with obstacles and venomous creatures lurking about. Avoid these routes, even when they appear to be beautiful, tantalizing, or easy. The wrong path narrows quickly but every step makes it harder to turn back.

The left path. Sometimes the fork presents two equally viable options: the right path is right, but so is the left—or maybe you cannot tell which path is correct. In these instances, it is most important to simply pick either path, using all available relevant information, and keep moving forward. Even if we pick the wrong path, we grow from the failure; There are no wrong turns, only unexpected paths.

No path. When we are faced with two unknown paths—left and right—we often freeze with indecision, stuck in our decision-making paralysis. This is the worst option of all: not deciding is always a bad decision.

How far can you go down the wrong path before you can't get back on the right one?

No matter which path you are on, always do this: Question your path! If you are on the wrong path, change it; no matter on which mile of the road, change it! Till you find the right path, change all the paths.

Escaping your path

There’s no way to undo the weeks, months or years that have passed: they’re gone. Wishing that you’d made different choices, or that you’d had better advice, is a waste of time. You can’t change the past. But you don’t need to start again from the beginning of the path. You can cut through the woods.

Into the sunlight 

There will come a moment, one shining day, when you hack through the last of the tangled brambles to stand blinking in the sunlight. Your feet are on your new path, which turns and twists through the pleasant greenery, and the birdsong above brings an instant feeling of calm as soon as you step out into the light.