What a darling delight of a challenge this is.

You've given writers permission to just... fucking say whatever they want? Brilliant.

So why is my head suddenly empty?

Hah. What a funny joke I've made, though it only makes any sense to me... The joke being that my head could be empty, duh.

I'm always thinking. There's a non-stop monologue running in my mind.

Sometimes I wish I could just shut the hell up.

But I can't.

So I mentally drone.

I get so caught up in it sometimes... it distracts me from driving, eating, cooking, cleaning... fucking.

My words are an ever present pulse, beating like their very own morbid heart.

Telling me to look at the sunset, instead of the steering wheel.

Telling me to think about ink on pages instead of fingers playing on the softest bits of skin.

Telling me to go sit at the computer, tap away, let the dinner burn.

Let the world burn.

If only so the words can get out.

So here I sit. I tap, tap, tap at the keys.

Children snore in the next room over.

Dogs lie curled at my feet.

Dirty dishes in the sink.

Laundry in a mound, hidden behind the wash room door.

Dust all over the floor.

But I couldn't give a single shit.. so long as the words are flowing.

The feeling I get when I put words on page... It is a homecoming.

It is a heart pounding.

It is lips tingling with the pleasure of words unspoken, but nonetheless expressed.

And in those moments, I have no other care in the world. I am free. I am myself. I hide here, behind the guise of anonymity, and yet here... I am my one true self. I can show you who I am, because I am not terrified you'll hate me.

I don't care if you hate me.

I just care about getting the words out.

I just have to set them free.

So my heart pounds on, chest heaving under the weight of worlds untold.

I can't sleep.

So I'll dream while I'm awake.

This will not be like my other posts, this one will lack poise and refinement, but it will be as raw and real as anything I have ever written. The morning is cloudy, it's just rained, but the clouds linger over us. So, what's special about this morning? Nothing. I had plans to go out with a friend, a friend who won't reply. My dad asked me, "How's college? How are your friends?" and all I could ask is "What friends?". My adventures are always alone, but my deepest secret is that I want a group of friends in college more than I could ever imagine. The last few weeks have been a steady stream of people ditching me for something better, reinforcing the notion that I will always be 2nd in someone's life, even if they come first for me.

The only good group of friends I have is scattered across the country, weekly facetime calls are the only thing that reminds us that home is made of people, not a place. And under the veil of my online identity, I will tell you my biggest secret. Last week, one of my friends asked us, "If you could be granted one wish, right now, what would it be?", and that was the first time I've ever lied to my friends. We laughed, more happiness, more freedom, maybe some Taco Bell, we joked. But here it is, here is what I wanted to wish for, so horrible that I haven't even been able to say it out loud.

I wished everyone would forget me. I wished that no one would feel pain if I left. I've wanted to run, disappear, leave, drown, and the harshest one of all, I once wanted to leave this earth. But there is a thought in my head, that the people who really love me, might feel a irreversible pain. It's like a safety net, and they will never know how deeply, they are the only thing tethering me to this world. But, by god, sometimes I wish that no one knew me, so it would hurt them when my feet break out into a run and I disappear.

It's a horrible thing, I know, but I can only be lonely for so long. I'm sure it doesn't feel like the end of the world to you, but to me, I think that the world would keep spinning and it wouldn't make a difference. The only thing that stops me from just disappearing is that it might cause more pain than my freedom is worth. Will this be my life? Adventuring alone and telling myself that I like it better than being with people? What is it that makes me want to run away? I'm looking for something different out of life and people my age aren't seeking the same things. I can't pretend the alcohol makes me feel full, it only leaves me feeling empty. I can't cope the way they do. Because if I do, and I reach the bottom of the bottle, it'll be as empty as I feel.

I'm sorry, if you are reading this, I am sorry. I am sorry for the tears that are falling from my eyes and I am sorry for the pain I feel. I know you don't have to be reading this, but my god, I appreciate it. It means the world and more to me. This is my safe space. This will be the secret I take to the grave. It's a cloudy morning, and I still can't see the sun in the sky.

If I begin to unpack my thoughts in this way, allowing thoughts to flow directly from my mind to my fingertips to the screen, I am not entirely sure what will appear on said screen before my eyes. What if I don't like it? what if the unabridged, unedited version of my mind is repulsive to me? What if it is to others?

But -- isn't this why we write? To find out what lives inside of us? And not only what lives inside us as the writers, but to discover what lives inside of all of humankind? Isn't that the point of it all? I write to learn things I didn't know I knew until I began to write them down, and this, too, is a surprise to me even as I write it.

I am supposed to write until my head is empty, and a part of me worries that will never happen because a writer always brims with more words waiting to be spoken. Well, written, I should say. And yet -- somehow, I know my head will empty itself. Because I know so well the familiar feeling of writing in my journal, almost frantic, scribbling lines of thought into existence upon my page in black ink, desperate to pour ideas and feelings and the very idea of being alive, onto a page and capture it there, where it will remain, stained in ink, long after I've forgotten I ever felt that way or had that epiphany or underwent that experience. I know the feeling of dumping myself onto page after page after page, and then, suddenly -- it's enough. I'm done. My pen drops, I let out a breath, I scan the last sentence of my page, I give a shake to my aching wrist, massage my cramped fingers, look at the window, and bask in the feeling that my innards are now clinging to a page, rescued from the abyss of the mystery of my being and held there to paper for me to look back upon later. My head is empty in that moment. My words have run freely, and they have run out. In those moments, I feel overflowingly full, yet marvelously emptied and unburdened. It is that sweet moment of both. Both empty, and full. Reminiscent, and hopeful. Clearheaded, yet awed at the mystery. Both the excavator and the hidden treasure, at the same time.

So, because I know this feeling, I am not worried that I will have to keep tapping away at this keyboard for eternity. I know there will be a moment in which my words have run their race and my head is, for an instant, empty.

What a gift this challenge has given to me to be able to freely write until I reach that point. A mess and tangle of words usually reserved for my journal will appear for all the world to see, and that thought does not make me afraid.

This is one of the greatest gifts of being an artist, of any kind, and writing is art -- this not being afraid. Most of the world is afraid to show their vulnerabilities, and we are, too. But we cannot give in to that fear. To create art is to embrace vulnerability. it is to expose it in others, too, to bring out the worst and the best in humans.

Sometimes I am afraid I will never be able to do that -- that all of my writing falls short, and always will. That I will never write something that perfectly captures a moment, the essence of a perosn. And I am right to think my writing will fall short. I know I am. In part because I am a human, and in part because existence is to broad a thing to be captured into words, no matter how expertly spun. The thing that is wrong is for that to make me afraid. If I choose not to write because I am afraid it will not be perfect, that would be like choosing not to live because life isnt perfect, and that is unthinkable. Life is unbearably, achingly beautiful, and is the furthest thing from perfect. What if my writing, too, then, could be both? What if it could be so wonderful it makes my heart ache, and yet be flawed, at the same time?

Isnt that what it means to be alive?

I hit my sweet spot. I havent yet realized the meaning of my words, but I found the spot when my fingers wanted to stop, and my brain had no follow-up thought.

Signing off, L.

I wondered what would leak out of my head if those cracks were a little larger, repeated blunt force trauma, spraying, blood, words and spilling from this fractured skull.

The crimson words spread across the cold floor, splashing words across that broken wall of a broken home, inside my head.

The funnyman makes an appearance. Although akin to the place and things that crowd sidefile in preparation for the funnyman's appearance, the remoteness of where the funnyman stays foreground-wise displays a deep and faraway relation between the funnyman, the rarity of him having a direct and tangible occurrence among all what inside this world shaped into the gossamer of structured cognizance that permits the funnyman a singular role within the hemispheres, all fat and molecular globules of water for synapsed lines to somehow stay inhabitable but never reach full navigation of where the head snaps close at all points only for the funnyman, safe from the atmosphere of the place and things that the funnyman closes judgement against not only the world of wired pressure and reflexive imaginings, but the totality of the landscape that appears in front of the funnyman and makes him wink, prosaically, at the esplanade belonging to what is beyond judgement to the funnyman's reliable ratiocination.

The funnyman does not vanish with the same precision, once outside the boundaries of the world it keeps in judgement but leaves in mercy for the place and things cannot weather his changeless humors. Bile leaks from the hemispheres at the moment of release from sighting.

The funnyman tries to smile following the yearly wink, acknowledging the places and things beyond what it rules over benignly, if with benighted mischief at the funnyman's heart.

The funnyman grins so vile it bends the shape of the face into an eternal rictus. Bile in his eyes, sublime.

Why can't we all be heard,

why can't we all feel seen?

Being the scared little kid can only last so long,

before they tell you to "grow up", "don't be so sensitive".

You learn at a young age.. hiding your feelings will keep you safe.

I guess you didn't realize,

Those buried feelings would eat you alive for the rest of your life.

It's like... being buried alive.

You can't breathe,

You feel this weight in your chest,

You try and reach up for help,

But you're blocked by all this dirt;

Trapped in your own mind.

So you scratch,

And you claw,

But you can't seem to dig yourself out.

Suffocating.

Drowning in thoughts,

buried alive by your own mind.

You try to call for help,

But no one hears,

No one comes.

You're alone,

Cold,

Afraid.

And suddenly, you see light,

you smell fresh air.

Oh but, it only lasts so long...

Before you're trapped again.

Suddenly all I can think about is the song that's playing in this Starbucks. It's not my normal Starbucks, the normal Starbucks is the one I work at, I have a shift there tomorrow super early so I have to get to bed early so hopefully I have time to take a shower after I get home. the barista behind the counter is tapping the pitcher on the counter to get the milk to consolidate, she's making something with milk clearly because lemonade doesn't do that. I wonder if the moderator in the fan group that just posted a picture will like my comment, I feel like so many people in groups like that end up friends nowadays and nobody ever asks to pm me or meet up irl, I know it's a two way street but I'm afraid and I think some movie along the way is keeping me convinced that my winning personality will make people flock to me, maybe the same movie that convinced me that my soulmate will just fall into my lap one day and I don't have to go hunting like everyone else. I should be writing my novel. I still need to write my grandma a thank you note. I wonder how much money is in my bank account after lending my best friend money for rent. She's gotten way too comfortable asking for money. I'm too soft. I should be saying no. But then if anything happens to her it will be my fault. People are talking too loud in here. Gotta close my pen before it dries out. The moderator replied to my comment. Can't finish my tea too quickly or they might kick me out.

Why wasn't the question - it was the morphine. I asked it for some relief it never indeed provided me. I needed more. I questioned more. It gave me nothing. Of course, I was left feeling empty. There was never enough to satisfy this need, which I couldn't relinquish. A thirst no one could ever quench.

Maybe my head was filled with too many things. I'm just writing it out to escape what no one else wants to know about. I like it better when people don't know these things about me. "I'm an open book." Bullshit. I call myself out but never verbally. I'm just playing a game where the rules were never explained to me. You'll figure it out as you go or lose, but they say no one's competing.

It all felt like bologna to me. Watch what you're saying, pay attention to who's looking, don't you know they're always watching. An ant they magnify doesn't matter how small they are still bound to see. Can you forget the critiques? Maybe, eventually. I was going to wait and see. Find what they never did. That was all me.

You go before me. That's not polite; it's the fear inside of me. It's creeping out. You see it but know nothing about it. We're just laughing about it now. How similar and oppositional we just might be. Why? I stopped questioning. Uninterested, I found you to provide me with no relief. So to this quest, I keep trekking.

Be real. How many times have I been fake?

I'm always fake, I tell everyone, does that somehow make me less fake?

I say one story to one person and a different thing to another. And then I go back to the person I spoke about and say it's not true.

I'm a mess. And I want a clean start. But now he's gone, and I know I messed up. It was my idea, for him to be gone.

I told my friends he pressured me when if I didn't say anything, was that really pressure? I could've stopped it. But I believed the lies I conceived.

I told one person I did truly love him, and my closest friends I didn't. Am I just scared of their judgment?

How many times has he told me not to care what other people think?

At times, I know he was good for me.

But in my head, I'm a mess, knowing and believing that he is bad.

He waved at me. Yesterday, when I fully thought he was done with me, after all, it was me that blocked him and didn't respond. I turned around. And looking at the other people in the room Why do you always care what other people think?

I turn back, and see his playful shock what? not gonna wave back?

I smile and wave back.

Today, I didn't see him. I tell my friends, yesterday was traumatizing. But was it?

Truth be told, I was ashamed of being with him. I do care what other people think. But while at the same time, I do truly know that he wasn't all that good, neither am I.

But have my deceits made me believe I'm not in love with him anymore?

Because now I look at him and don't feel a thing.

I'm fake.