I'm so goddamn sick of being black and blue I'm through it's time to lay down a new coat of paint something the rain won't penetrate I'm no bedroom wall my skin is being berated by hurricanes I am a lighthouse with a fear for waves I am the survivor and I am the storm pick up your feet don't wander you've got to run if you're looking for anything but comfort let's move on let's take another road maybe the one with pot holes so you don't fall asleep maybe the one with gravel so you're numb once we get through let's go let's get there let's leave here I can't breathe beneath the sheets it's suffocating please keep reading have you ever had that feeling like maybe you're making a mistake but you keep right on reeling with someday and too soon and take two

I never wanted to fall apart all I ever wanted to be was art all we ever needed was a brand new start and how can I be proud of these walls when it's coated in chipped paint and water stains from when heartbreak leaked in through the roof it's just proof I'm no longer pure how could you tell me to just keep going when there's no where to get to how could you

here we go and there we went and do you wanna go again we used to be breathless we used to know butterflies but they've flown and we've grown and what's the use of crying over cartons of spilled secrets when everyone could see through me anyways I want to remember what it is to be new what it is to meet you what it is to be blue like the sky like your eyes like everything you never knew

and I might be a mystery but my heart has always been on my sleeve all you've got to do is dig through a few layers of cellophane to touch the rotting remains of feelings I now fake my life is in refrain my mind is down the drain

I buried my blades I flushed the pain that doesn't mean I don't remember how it was to rain saltwater what it means to bleed rivers how it feels to swallow smog and sewage what it is to slip on your own spewage

look away saving face saving grace

I just need a new layer of paint

pale blue like you were under the moon pale blue like I was under you pale blue like we were in the morning dew new fly flew

just let me cover up my bruises

don't give me grief as I touch up my smudges because I never asked to be imperfect all I ever wanted was blending and if you have the beauty to judge me then good for you how about a hand

how about a leg

let's remember we were only ever here to surrender and as I recall you arrived prepared to fail but somewhere you lost your brush lost your touch

grab a roller and let's get going

these walls won't paint themselves

in the early days

of my fourteenth year

it occurred to me

that i had never broken a bone

that i was writing just to fill the page

that i was living just to pass the time

boys were boys

in cotton shorts

and girls were goddesses

i never dared to think about

death was a mile away

even when i played with fire-

sticking my hands in flames just to see

how long i could last

before i burned-

sometimes it disappointed me

but sometimes i was relieved

born and bred

a cradle catholic,

i had always

believed in god-

not enough to want to pray,

but just enough not to

cause a scene

every wednesday

i would go to church

and every wednesday

i would feel nothing at all

as a child

sitting in sunday school,

i learned

it is hard to turn nothing

into something

yet i was told

he built the world

with his own two hands,

crafting the moon and sun

and all the stars

out of his nailbeds

i was told

it took six days

to create the earth,

and the seventh day

was left for us to believe it

but it's hard to believe in god

when you don't even believe in yourself

and it's hard to love a god

that might not love you

for who you are

as i grew

i tried praying

with my clammy hands pressed together

and my sweaty knees on the floor

but i did not get a miracle

nor a saving grace

faith did not clog my pores

my veins did not flood with his mercy

so i assumed

a wreck like me could not be saved

in the early february

of my seventeenth year,

i was patted down

and searched

and stripped of my belongings-

my dignity

my pride

even my goddamn sweatshirt-

as i was entered into the inpatient ward

in the hospital,

the girl hooked on meth and heroin

told me

that life was bullshit-

"there ain't no god,"

she said

through the sores around

her mouth-

i began to believe her

so i stood beside her

and stood for nothing

secretly i spent days concocting "what ifs"

hoping to find the right hypothesis

but i could always disprove them

with this proof-

i had not gotten my miracle-

therefore,

god had not gotten his green card

as spring bloomed into summer

i gave my faith to girls

with red lipstick

and auburn hair

and i experienced heaven

when i kissed them-

it felt so good to sin

and i did not want to be redeemed

it became harder to hide

than be myself

so i crawled out of the rose bushes

and declared my being

while denying god's-

and not a single soul told me to go

in late june

of my seventeenth year,

it occurred to me

that i'd broken my mind

but it was healing

that i was writing

because i was breathing

that i was passing time

because i wanted to

I feel each equinox

and solstice

like a crowbar

to the head.

I always have.

Sometimes,

the degree to which

the seasons affect me

is a surprise.

I never remember.

Each time my

reactions are new.

Each season,

my brain receives

new orders

from Hell.

I get to be someone new

every four months.

Santa Clause

comes to town

and sucks all the

dopamine

out of my skull.

The Tooth Fairy

arrives

and rips me off.

I become the

Great Pumpkin.

I never show up.

Last Fall I didn't sleep

for eight weeks.

I walked around all day

with a ball of energy

in my torso.

I fed off of the

sleeplessness

like it was a

soft, ripe peach.

It was weird to

get used to

living in a state of

constant anxiety.

I took pride in the fact

that I could put it to good use.

I started writing again

after several years of

nothing.

It was like the leaves fell down

onto my shoulders

and changed who I was.

I was tugged apart

by the motion of the earth

and my brain chemistry.

We are,

after all,

captive riders on a

chunk of

Oxygen.

Iron.

Silicon.

Magnesium.

I became the oranges

and golds.

The leaves and

the hot

spinning core

of the Earth.

A few Winters ago

I was bogged down into

a deep darkness

I couldn't shake.

My brain does this thing

where the world

looks like fog.

My body temperature

dropped.

I couldn't see clearly.

My emotions were dull.

Apathy and a

mild,

blunt,

droning

headache.

The Spring that followed

was a wildfire.

I woke from my hibernation

to find myself burning.

Imagine sitting dead still

with nothing but your heart

running at full speed.

The sun draws me out of myself.

I become wide eyed

and the place

where my thoughts come from

insists on screaming.

My brain questions

all of my actions

and replays each

move I make

on a constant feed.

A grease fire,

and I just kept on

throwing water.

Incessant motion

was the only way to

drown out the din.

Keep

fucking

rolling.

Talk a lot.

Tonight is the

longest day of the year.

My heart is full of

more energy

than the sun.

My head is a swirl

of color and worry.

Teal.

Grey.

Bile yellow.

Tomato.

There is clarity,

but no focus.

There is no peace

for me

to hold.

This Summer will

not be a wildfire,

but a lantern

throwing off sparks

under the dark humid grey

of an incoming July storm.

The kind that turns the sky

funny colors

and knocks down

enough trees

to be a pain in the ass.

The kind that

shorts out electronics

when the lightening

hits your house.

We'll see if it can

blow me into the street,

or make me

overflow my banks.

Shutter your windows.

Lock up

your daughters.

Buy a canoe.

Let the horses

out of the barn.

Insure your shit.

My gut says I am

capable

of inflicting damage.

Thursday morning revved up like any morning. Blue, brown, green, yellow. The color through the window, the color on his plate. Eggs and grass. Coffee and sky. He hardly noticed. Even so, he smirked at his own cleverness. Shoulda been an artist. Throwing the dishes in the sink, he grabbed his keys and shut the door. One more day. Then, the mountain. One more epic climb before the surgery.

He throttled the Alfa Romeo through the corner, then let it cruise as he negotiated traffic with both eyes in the mirror. Distracted, something was different about his reflection. He should know. He spent a lot of time in it. Before he could decide what it was, he saw a truck pull up so fast behind him that he braced himself for the mash to his backside.

But it didn’t. No way the truck stopped in time, but he felt no impact. No mash. Only nauseous. And faint. Out of obsessive habit he looked in the mirror, and saw his skin gone sickly green, his eyes backwards. Left was right, right was left. Grabbing his face with both hands, he rubbed his eyes and forehead as if to undo this grotesque dream. The skin on his hands felt sticky, slick. Tree geckos flooded his mind. Wake up. Wake up.

Something was off. Everything was off. The lightheadedness got worse, his tongue felt inside out. He clutched the steering wheel as an anchor but the intensity of sensation of the leather on his fingers caused him to recoil. As if touching fire. He tried to scream. Mottled puffs of air bubbled up through his contracted trachea. Some alien warble squeaked out. Brxhruhhhhh…

He opened his eyes as wide as they could go, sight fading. Everything converting to grey, as if he were in a wet Caravaggio being squeegeed into abstract, all colors mashed together. Within a few minutes, no vision at all. Useless orbs.

On the other side of the world, geologists recorded unconventional seismic activity. Weather centers, geostationary satellites, and space stations flooded with frantic demands. All sensors worldwide registered impossible data. Before anyone could analyze or speculate or respond, all people lost their sight. Something was off. Everything was off.

No one knew. Far off the coast of Finland, a small lighthouse made of crimson bricks shifted. One of the bricks sunk into the Baltic Sea. The cause: Sudden radioactive decay of one atom at its core. This brick was not like the others. This brick was not a brick. It was a slag of squarish residue from Lake Lappajärvi where a meteor mashed the backside of the earth 76 million years before. That time, whoever was driving felt the impact.

This artifact held the slenderest magnetic pulse that kept the earth tilted on its axis at the exact sequence of degree and warp required for human sight. Once it was gone, even though all the rest of the recipes and ingredients of the complex matrix that keeps life intact was unmoved, vision ended. Orientation to reality was unseated. Other senses respond. The plastic brain renegotiates. A new story begins.

What was left of universal blindness was questions. Had we seen all that could be seen? Had we looked at all the hues, shapes, distances, lights and darknesses? Had we noticed the tear on the hair of the pulsing sun? Had we perceived the shaking and shadow of a stranger’s gaze? Had we captured all the fragments of rags of moments forever?

This tiny atom danced in its perfect rhythm all those years, eons, epochs. Now, it was tired. It no longer danced the dance. All the glories and injustices visions witnessed were now dusts of memory. Something. Everything. What if we had known?

She picked up one of the empty bullet cases from the floor, delivered by an M16 assault rifle, and discreetly slipped it in her bag. This was a significant piece of her story, a memory she wanted to keep, despite its tragedy. A memory that would crash into the consciousness of others, in years to come.

-----------------

"Was that at Mum's 40th?!" I asked my Auntie Elle pointing to an old photograph on her mantelpiece. I was briefly visiting my old town to see Nan who had been taken into hospital, and Auntie Elle always provided welcoming accommodation and a home-cooked dinner.

"Yes, that was at Sefton Road, 26 years ago!” she replied.

I sat cross legged on her carpeted floor in front of the electric fire. She'd lived alone for the last 34 years and cherished the company of close family.

"And what's that?!" I asked pointing to a small golden cylinder sat on top of a rock.

"Oh it's from Palestine, dear."

"Is it a bullet?!"

"Well, it's the shell, you know, the casing of a bullet."

My Auntie Elle, a 78 year old woman, an unassuming, kind and gentle soul, then told me her story. I sat and listened. In silence. In shock. In astonishment and in horror. A whole new existence of my Auntie Elle emerged, her energy glowed and her words radiated my core whilst shifting my entire concept of reality all the way back to the day I was born. By the end of her story, I’d evolved, a hundred thousand years. My heart raged, my spirit was ablaze and the indescribable admiration I had for this woman, soared with disorientation.

How had I not known all of this before?

It’s as though every atom that had been me, every electron, nucleus and subatomic particle, had scrambled and dispersed into infinite space; and then, regathered, but with a distinctly noticeable change in formation.

The way I’d see, feel and think would never be the same again.

---------------

She walked through the checkpoint, and through the metal fence saw a bulldozer savagely tearing down an orange farm. She saw a Palestinian lady screaming, begging and crying with despair. The orange farm was her livelihood, her only source of income. Auntie Elle walked towards the fence and held out her hand, and the Palestinian lady responded by reaching back out towards her, their hands connecting. Through unspoken communication Auntie Elle told her she

wasn’t alone, through her eyes she reassured her there were good people around who knew, who saw, and through her touch she promised there was love.

The noise of the firing rifle tore apart the hope. The anger-filled shouts demanded immediate severance, and the momentary relief of understanding and solidarity, was gone.

After a dangerous exchange of unchecked impulsive retort, Auntie Elle was ushered by her friend to silently move on... but not before picking up one of the empty bullet cases from the floor and discreetly slipping it into her bag.

--------------------

When I first heard that dark bass line, I saw the eyes of other people's children staring out into the blackness. When the haunting words began, my skin shivered as I watched my own child crawl into that life. When the tone, laden with warning, penetrated my soul with a terror unknown; and the crash of guitar blasted missiles, rockets and grenades into the desperately helpless hell of despair... well then I knew, that our evolution would have to far surpass any physical progression.

In a time and place that normalises war, slaughter and torture, where children in certain parts of the world are left to die because their country doesn’t contribute any significance to the power and profit of the world’s elite, where the media lies and innocent cries are cast aside... it slowly dawns that this, is not human nature. This is the want of the privileged few, not the compassion of the loving many.

Developed way beyond archaic hatred, Auntie Elle dedicates her life to the cause of peace and justice, despite being shot at, threatened and intimidated, still she continues, unwavering, at 78, to spread love, support and peace.

The origin of consciousness, of universal existence... commencing an evolutionary progression exceeding this primitive bodily existence, heading towards the beginning of time, forwards to the start, where energy is united and we... are all one.

When Robin Williams

killed himself,

I tweeted, too soon,

my feelings about it;

coming out of surprise and anger

and a sense of disappointment,

which, admittedly, included

my judgment that it’s

hard for me to forgive

such an act,

hard not see it

as cowardly and wrong

because I felt and still feel that way.

I think I know

as much as anyone,

that life is filled with pain—

and I hold the right to feel what I feel

about suffering and bravery

and life and death.

No one needs to agree with me—

I don’t ask for that nor do I care.

But a good friend of many years,

a man I’ve both loved

and admired

attacked me on Twitter

saying no one needed my forgiveness

and that my words

were

‘shallow’ and ‘insensitive’

naming me in standard Twitter-form

@TerryTrueman,

so that everyone who followed him

could hear his wrath and anger,

his condemnation.

It felt to me

like he was standing on one side

of Grand Central Station,

during rush hour,

with a megaphone

yelling across

that vast expanse

an attack on my

character and views. . .

on me,

because his words were

personal,

hurtful, and seemed

so unnecessary:

We’d been friends for

so long

and he could have called, emailed,

snail-mailed,

dropped me a note,

rang my doorbell,

invited me to lunch,

passed word via mutual friends,

texted his disagreement

or even tweeted his disapproval anonymously;

I’d have known

that his sub-tweet was meant

for me.

My remarks had not been

directed to or in any way

about my friend—they were about suicide.

His anger seemed targeted solely at me.

Nonetheless,

I tried to mend fences quickly:

I deleted my tweet

apologized,

to him @ and to anyone else

offended by my remarks.

indeed, a number of Twitter

followers

sent me messages of support.

but my friend ignored me,

brushed aside

the proffered olive branch,

remaining silent then,

and up to this day.

There’re two sides to every

quarrel,

and the fact that my friend

never cut down the hanging, dead body

of his stepson

and did CPR until the paramedics

arrived and pronounced him dead.

and then had to tell his mother,

that her only son, our son

had killed himself

the fact that my friend,

likely,

never went through

such a thing

may go some distance

in helping understand

why

my views

about suicide and the

damage it does

to loved ones

left behind

are so different than his?

Or maybe he forgot about

my experience of that

or maybe he never cared

about it

to begin with?

Although, he’s a much beloved,

adored and respected

author of books for teens

filled with righteous moral

indignation and enormous

moral certainty.

But whatever it is,

that has kept my friend

from talking to me,

I’ll never know

because when Robin Williams

killed himself,

a long and treasured friendship died as well

and I don’t see it coming back again.

After all,

dead is as dead,

as Robin Williams is.

And now my former pal, and hopefully

everyone else

who reads this poem

will understand.

“Mama, look!” She squealed with excitement as she finished filling the hole around the small tree with soil.

Her mother smiled and bent down beside her, patting the soil down smoothly. Her three-year-old daughter giggled excitedly over the small life now growing in their front yard.

“It’s so small, Mama!” she giggled, “It looks like a stick!”

Her mother smiled, “Yes, it does look like a stick right now, but it’s going to grow into a big tree over the years. One day it’ll be as big as all the other trees.”

“Should I name it, Mama?”

Her mother laughed, “If you want to.”

“Okay! I think I’ll name it… Briar!”

Her mother laughed and shook her head, “That’s an… interesting name for a tree.”

“I think it’s fitting.” She looked at the tree and smiled.

Years later, when she was far past being the three-year-old she was when she planted he tree, she went out into the front yard while it snowed, thinking about her years as a mere child when she planted the tree and her progression into the teenage years she’s going through. The tree had grown over the past thirteen years—it was taller than her and its trunk was thicker than her arm.

She touched the trunk with her gloved hand, running her fingers down the trunk. Snow scarcely got in her hair, for the leaves over her head shielded her from the flakes that fell at a steady pace.

She softly whispered to Briar, telling it stories of happy and unhappy times from the past months. Briar had over the years become a sort of place of peace for her—a place where she could unveil her soul and be completely herself. She confided in her tree as if it were a close friend—because Briar was her friend. She could tell anything to Briar—things that other people wouldn’t understand.

She felt safe when it was just her and her tree.

Decades later after her mother passed away due to illness, she visited her father and went out to her tree. She was married now and had two lovely children to take care of.

It was the middle of spring now and she gently touched her tree. Briar had grown significantly since she first planted it. It had grown from being the size of a stick to a full grown tree—the trunk larger around than her hips.

Her mother was right: it did grow to be as big as all the other trees.

She smiled at the memory of her mother.

“I miss her, Briar.” she whispered to the tree as she stood before it, tears welling up in her eyes as memories of her mother flashed in and out of her mind.

Years and years later she fell ill… and so did her tree.

She struggled to get to her feet and go out to see her tree.

She held herself up by leaning with one hand against the tree. She looked up at its drooping branches and fading leaves. She let tears slowly stream down her cheeks as she recalled every moment she spent with her tree. She recalled every story she told her tree and every secret that lay enclosed deep within the layers of bark.

But the moment that stuck out most in her mind was the moment that she planted Briar.

“Look, Mom,” she spoke softly around the tears, “Briar… Briar is dying… and so am I…” She looked down as the tears began to flow out heavier and harder. “I miss you, Mom… and soon I’ll see you again. Soon Briar and I will be back with you—all three of us together again.”

From but only a thought and a single-cell

I burst through: welcomed but expelled

I came from blank thoughts and repetitive motions

To engaging in conversation developing ideas and notions

I rolled on rugs from end to end with no pace or strategy

To capturing accolades in my athletic pursuits, as if casually

I once found the notion of my demise one frightening

Now every day I'm alive, seems like it might be far more enlightening

I've come across a share of others I thought I loved and befriended

I've seen some grow, some make family, and some have time ended

Mine eyes started with great clarity : Crisp, clean, and constant

Evolved or devolved with astigmatism If I must be honest

In that regard I once believed I could be punished for telling lies

Now I know that you can earn your weight in gold for it, in employer's eyes

I once believed in the American dream : Be all you can be, live, do, and be free

Now I'm aware that even with your greatest strengths- Corporate chains are some of the most restraining

I once was blessed with a child's sense of happiness and go go go

I grew into a sense of disappointment answering many wrongs with "no, no, no"

My spirituality began boxed and confined to pews of churches brick and pine

Now I know that those thoughts are shared between the creator and simply I

I once thought you started at the beginning and that there was a definitive finish

It's more and more evident, that this is less true as things are less systemic

I watched a world grow from one norm to the next, claiming one time was best

I laughed, I cried, I forgot, I remembered, I digress

The Earth filled with more and more bodies no longer running

The heaven's and hell's agents always getting more cunning

I saw ignorance grow into a new found passion in knowledge

I watched knowledge turn one to sloth passion left looking rotten

The words from me may sound sad, truth is they aren't oversold

You'll get what you see and not simply what you're told

I once slept normally and awoke naturally

now I am restless and awake with device's aid erratically

I once started as a babe writing the letter's shapes on a paper

Hoping that somehow I made words that were valid , no danger

Looks like I tread a thin-line stringing ideas and thoughts together in type

Hoping that it makes sense, that there's more substance than just self-hype

I grew from a school of thought that I could be great in any way I wanted to be

I never grew out of that, I applied the idea that I must always be improving

From the moment I show up to the moment I roll out

Working on my weaknesses, driving away others' doubt

I was but babe

now I'm a mind:

I now see all

where once was blind

I

She rouses from a road bump,

spots me reading a book of poems,

and assumes me to be educated.

Her sweatshirt is rolled up like a bikini top,

unveiling her large stomach

with the pomp of a premiering vaudeville show.

She’s been unselfish since birth,

salt of the earth worth her weight in gold.

Sold down the river at her own demand,

she walked straight into our house of mourning,

wrapped her wise arms around my 11-year old frame,

and kissed my tortured mind.

She reminds me that spring is coming back for us;

we just have to spin the world a little more first.

But she’s been forgotten and forlorn,

become a run-down ghost town

whose people left her long ago in heart

before she lost them to industry.

And I write to her, to you because I loved, love, will love you

and I want to understand who you are,

who you were, and who you’re still yet to become.

Watch now how slowly a tear can form,

and then fall, when you’re crying

and think you have nothing

worth being sad about.

II

The sexiest thing you’ve ever said to me was

I want you inside me

and all my blood rushed center and down.

But you were supposed to be my sandbox, not my stone tablet;

there to make me realize how quickly I would die.

Our void grows contemptuous,

widens with each jealousy,

sprouts a new offshoot so green,

so doomed to be forgotten.

I hope your children grow up to be poets

so you’re never able to understand them.

I reread the printed letters from my lawyer,

make constellations of his patterned excuses.

I catch every person’s phone conversation

and reply to both ends, snatch their vested secrets,

could expose the truths of their youths.

But you haven’t read about me in your guidebooks,

and you’re not sure who to believe anymore.

III

Born of the same soured soil and tainted rain,

we did the only thing we knew how,

grew inward – tighter and tighter into each other,

hoping that our togetherness could save us

from the harshness of our surroundings.

But the darknesses we hold inside us –

deep and consuming enough to digest galaxies –

have somehow found homes in our foreign bodies.

We are eroding within, like our lost coast,

ever crumbling into the insatiable gulf

as grown men seek a fantastical world

where their monsters obey them

and not the other way around.

She had to have heard the morning moanings

of VHS vixens through thin walls.

Shut up, shut up, sit down, and get lost

in this sitcom rerun with him for the third time today.

His self-slapped golden handcuffs keep him

tight where his boss wants him,

marionetting stability and rigidity

as our former selves fight inside to stay alive,

waiting for the worst moments

to resurrect themselves in their familiar haunts.

He couldn’t domesticate the beast with obedience;

his training just taught him to gnaw the wrong things.

We want to be brackish,

but fear what we may kill in the process –

some just can’t comprehend the water’s ways:

filled only with soft breathing and flushed skin –

the work of an inexperienced child

who’d only before fucked women

to submission in his mind.

And your elegance and innocence couldn’t save you,

not this time.

One day, they’ll understand

the power of a peaceful moment,

the courage of calming the raging storms of their souls,

the wisdom of harnessing their ferocity for greater ends.

I’m twenty-four, and I know I haven’t really been on this earth too long, but even so; there just way too many things I question, things I disagree with, and even things that I daydream about just because it makes me happy to do so.

I know I’ve fucked a lot of things up in my life; I always joke about drinking too much, doing too many drugs, and just being overall crazy. And I can see how people would think, “Geez, what the fuck is he thinking? Doesn’t he know he’s just being stupid and fucking up his life?”

But to be honest, if I could go back in time, I wouldn’t change a single moment of my life. Because really, I feel like if I did, I wouldn’t be the person I am today. And I believe in learning from your mistakes, not regretting them.

I can honestly say I’ve probably crammed more life into my insignificantly short time on this earth than most people do in they’re entire lifetime, and that would be absolutely impossible without my experiences, every single one, good and bad.

Because really, there are some things that you can only understand after doing them to the point of utter insanity, and then thinking about them profusely afterwards.

I finally understand the quote, “The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom,” which a lot of dumb motherfuckers just use as an excuse to hide in insobriety without even realizing what the fuck it means.

Drugs and alcohol don’t do shit as far as making you more philosophical or creative like people always like to brag, but what they do provide is a clear window into the utter depths of the human condition; what people are really like on the inside; what people really look like under these wonderful facades everyone parades around with.

And it gets you thinking about morality, right and wrong, happiness, and what it means to really obtain self-actualization. Who are we to impose our beliefs on everyone else? Who are we to say we have the right to govern others? Who the fuck are we to say who or what makes you happy, and whether or not you’re allowed to do it?

In my opinion, morality and all that other bullshit is all subjective. Words and titles are worth crap in the grand scheme of the world, and we as individuals are just that; individuals.

Living by something you don’t believe in deep down is just lying to yourself. And the one thing that I have believed in from the day I was born up until now was:

“Be happy however the fuck you want, and as long as you aren’t fucking with anyone else’s happiness, you’re fine.”

And I know that’s awfully general, and there are a fuckload of grey areas, but really, that was basic tenet of what I thought it meant to be a good person.

But now I realize how imcomplete that statement was. It’s a bit sad, hah; you know what took me twenty-four long, bloodstained years to finally realize?

Your life is your life. And your happiness is you happiness. If something makes you happy, maybe you should look into it. Because at the end of it all, that’s what life is;

The pursuit of happiness.

But no one can ever really be happy alone.

Often the only way to really be happy

is to make other people happy too.