I wish I was a social butterfly. I wish I could strike a conversation with someone anytime I felt like it. I wish I didn't default to shy and reserved. I'm not even sure why I'm like this, but maybe if I knew, I could do something about it.

I wish I had a voice. I have a literal voice. I'm grateful to not be mute. When I say I wish I had a voice, I mean I wish I could say what I want to say, what needs to be said. I wish I could say the things on my mind and on my heart. Some of it should probably stay silent, but for the things that really need said, I wish there wasn't a big barrier.

I'm not even sure what the barrier is. I feel like it's me. Or maybe something deep inside of me. I mean, this had to have started somewhere, right? There's got to be a reason why I don't feel comfortable using my voice, right?

I wish I could figure it out. Part of it I could blame on the hearing loss. I don't know what other excuse I have except I've always been like this. My mind often blanks on things to say to people. What if they don't want to have a conversation with me? What if I annoy them? I'm so afraid I'll say the wrong thing.

Why is rejection still a problem for me?

I wish I didn't care what people thought of me or if they think I'm totally weird or stranger or crazy. I wish I had the right things to say to people when they're hurting. I feel like I know so many who are hurting and I don't have the right words to say and it hurts me. I want to see them healed, I want them to see that their lives have purpose and meaning and there is hope.

I wish I didn't crouch back into silence so quickly. I just listen. Then wish I had said something. People are hurting. Why do I sit in silence? I wish I didn't sit and stew in silence and I wish when I did talk, I talked about more meaningful things.

I wish I was able to save you. I know that is my sister’s role: the caring, innocent, savior friend. She is molded by the weight of others’ problems and her own insecurities. It’s endearing, really. I am not that person. I can save you, but unlike my sister, I live on your side. I know how things work here: how time is like oil, how sound is aqueous, and how thoughts are like bullets from AK 47s. So I don’t save you. If I save you, then I will be alone here. As time seeps on, you will forget the Veil and the Quiet and your thoughts will organize, still. Suddenly, I won’t be the sane of the two but I need the comparison to convince myself I’m ok. I can live with this guilt as long as you’re crazy with me, but I’d still like to save you. For what if the Empty swallows you? Then I will know that I could have told someone the Dark was gnawing at you. But I didn’t. You’re still here now, but you won’t be soon. Because I am too selfish to save you.

I wish I was a girl

who could pull off

the lipstick shade

lady danger

I wish I was a girl

who could wear lipstick

and exude confidence,

having men for breakfast

leaving nothing but a trace

of that red deliciousness

I wish there was a makeup

that speaks about me

more than it pretends -

a truth,

not a mask

making dangerous assumptions

about who I am

I look through a cage, the bars

br e ak in g up the beautiful view that lingers outside.

I gaze up through the water,

sunlight splintering and refracting the waves,

providing me with merely a murky illusion of the beauty

that awaits me at the surface.

I hear the giggles and shrieks from afar,

and I close my eyes,

imagining myself in the midst of the beautiful chaos.

my reach, taunting me.

out of

just

I reach for a dream, but it floats

I wish for a moment I know is coming, but one that is moving

t a n t a l i z i n g l y slowly,

laughing at my impatience with every step.

I wish...

I wish I were free.

I wish I were brave. I used to tell people I was, used to say it was my best quality. Whenever people asked me what it was I wanted out of life, I had one answer. I'd say I wanted to accumulate as much experience as possible. Friends would tell me I was fire, that I was a firework in a thousand colours, a lover whispered that I was a storm, and the maiden on Raglan road. I lived life too fast, wanted it all, wanted it right then and there.

I am not brave, and none of it is true anymore. I am not a creature made of clay, but a simple woman. I don't want every adrenaline rush the world has to offer. I don't want to live without knowing what might happen by the end of the week. I don't want to be fierce or courageous or valiant or strong. I want to be quiet. I want the silence one can only hear in the dead of night. I want to know the comforts of an invariable, reliable path. Breakfast at the same time every morning, a designated reading time before bed.

I'm not brave, don't want to be. To be brave, to know what it feels like to choose matter over mind and mind over matter. You have to know fear. I want nothing more to do with fear. I yearn for simplicity, for no-question affection, for certainty.

I don't want anything but peace.

I wish I was healthy. That I could do things like most people. That my joints weren't deteriorating, that my nerves weren't misfiring. No one sees there's anything wrong with me unless I let them, I'm good at faking it, and keeping a mask on. But I can't do it all the time. I get home and break down. I lower my pain riddled body onto the chair and try to just take some breaths. Some days the pain is so bad and so deep that I just roll around in bed grimacing and groaning. I have no one to wrap their arms around me and hold me and tell me it will pass. It will pass, but only for a while. I am only 29 but have been told by drs that my body is like a 55 yr olds. Am I going to be in a wheelchair by the time im that age? I just wish I was healthy. But it's not something I can ever make go away.

I wish that I knew what I was passionate about so that I can have something to keep me going. I find lots of things interesting, but nothing life-giving. I'm good at a lot of things, but not great at anything in particular. I was good at sports, but not good enough to play at a college or professional level. I have above-average intelligence, but I'm not a genius. I'm tall, but rarely the tallest in the room. You get the point.

even if you lean in close i might have to speak louder

i’ve always been quiet except for the shower

i wish i was pretty but we all say that

we can’t all be tens, let’s face the facts

sierra wants a prada bag and sam wants new heels

dear lord i just fucking wish i could feel

isaac wants a car, hannah wants a baby

i wish someone would call me their lady

julius wants unlimited alcohol

tana pleads for height

i’m okay being five feet tall

i just wish my friends were alive.

I wish I was able to fly. I wish I had giant feathery wings growing out of my lower shoulder blades so I could lift myself off the ground and fly. I tried to move my wings and even though they weren’t there, I knew what it would feel like to move them. I can feel the weight of them on my back, and more often times then not... their absense.

I remember how cool the world looks from up there, in the sky. I smile when I see it, and think not to be free as a bird, but to be free as I once was.

Some times, I have the thought that my wings have been removed. Like I had them once before and someone had gone through with the cruelty to take them away.

How else could I know so well how warm they get and how I would hold them up so they could catch a breeze and provide shade? How else do I remember the difficulties of washing them, the joy of grooming them? Why else would my back be used to carrying something more?

Why else would I miss being able to fly If I have never had wings to lift me off the ground?

@coldramen