On this day I arise from a poetic slumber, only to find myself looking through a cracked window, as saffron birds frolick against a crisp autumn sunrise. They tweet, chirp and flap their wings with decadence and splendor. While I stand disgusted at the somber reflection staring back at me. I quickly try to unsee the figure before me. I back away slowly and rub remnants of sleepy from one green halo at a time, until finally focused. But still....I loathe the distraction I see reflecting back at me.

I stand with my feet firmly planted in purple fuzzy slippers. Careful to not touch the unforgiving frozen squares of mint green tile below me. I am in firing line of a smudged mirror, connected to a white porcelain bowl. Its cracks mended together by leopard print duct tape. In a comatose state I brush one pearly bit of enamel at a time. I pick at a crack in my canine. And fight the urge to seal it with cement. It’s self sabotage at its finest. I spit the blue foamy concoction out of my mouth and watch it swirl, first left - then right, as it slithers itself into a black hole of oblivion. I wipe each corner of my pasty mouth with a Dollar Store towel. I notice It feels like sandpaper. Nevertheless I walk away from the battle grounds and into my makeshift vanity where I sink into my broken marketplace chair. -The one with the splintered arm, no thanks to my expanding figure. I thank it however for still standing. I wiggle to get comfortable and slowly start my transformation. I scrape out remninets of beige and ivory from various plastic tubes. An electric surge penetrates through each brush stroke and I slowly start to come back to life. No longer a zombie. Although I need not forget we are in the midst of an apocalypse. I sip on my steamy Maxwell as it indiscriminately scolds my twisted tongue still slightly stained a sky blue. I shout out profanity and Miss Jingles scampers down the vacant hall, her paws echoing against unswept floors, dodging dust bunnies no less.

I sigh. Another repeat of yet another ordinary day. I crave touch. And the feeling of desire. A kiss maybe to the forehead would be nice. ....lips even better. I find myself resisting temptation to ever so slightly self blame, navel gaze and destroy. And quickly remind myself I am the daughter of the most high God and that this too shall eventually... pass. I should feel like I a Queen. ....Why do I not? I ask myself as I look at a dark oasis of blues and purples under sleep deprived delusional vision. My life is a cautionary tale at best. I find myself at battle more often than not. I slay retched thoughts with silver bullets while they lie captive to a blanket of onyx on typical shiver inducing November Day.

And these are the not so glamorous days of my life. Has it come to this? Will I ever love her? This girl that mirrors back with ebony locks, flushed crimson cheeks and fluffy thighs. I proceed. I glance back at her and wave goodbye. I refuse to fall into a trap of darkness and self critical beatings. Just because he said you will never be worthy. Just because he said you are disgustingly fat. Just because he took, like that of a thief, does not mean it is the truth. It’s far from it actually. He was wrong -I remind myself despite the stringent string of unforgettable memories.

I am and always will be a masterpiece. I am and always will be beautiful. I am and always will be strong. A fighter and a child of God. I repeat it again and again until I believe it.

I walk alway from the splintered chair still standing. I strut with confidence and roar like a lioness as I step into patent stilettos, spanks and form fitting attire, most appropriate for a day meant for hard earned pay. This is my revolution. I will revel in accomplishments, success and freedom. And end it with a wash of coconut bubbles and cognac wine or champagne? I will celebrate. I will feel grace. I will feel self worth once again. And I will fall into dream land alone at twilight. . And know that it’s okay. ......I will rise the next day to an opulent horizon of turquoise and bits of yellow. I will sit a bit lighter. And reflect a sparkle this time. I will shed tears. Blood. And all fears behind. I will learn with each passing day to love her all over again. Madly.

I could sense my children’s revelry as I watched them through the window of my office. Their faces lit up as they jumped at every passing wave that came at them. I turned back from the window to sip my coffee. It wasn’t too hot but far from getting cold. It was just perfect. I looked down at my computer to finalize my work for the day. It was always a win to finish up by noon, that way the rest of the day could be spent doing whatever I could dream up.

As I closed my computer I heard the keys jingle at the front door. Finally the wife was home and our little family was now together for the rest of the day. As I got up from my

desk the dog at my feet raised her head with love to see if she was needed.

“Go back to sleep Izzy, we’ll go outside to play soon”

I walked into the kitchen to see Mary putting away her jacket. She was the perfect specimen of beauty, an absolute miracle in human form. There’d always been an air about her that made me feel like a schoolboy again anytime she was in the same room as me.

“Welcome home my love,” I said. A smile as big as I could muster appeared on my face.

“You didn’t miss me already, did you? I’ve only been gone for a few hours.”

She quickly walked over to me and put her arms around me. With a quick glance up to me she kissed me deeply. A kiss that seemed to block out the rest of the world. A kiss that seemed to go on forever yet didn’t seem to last long enough.

"I missed you too, dear.”

As she walked to the back of the house to be welcomed home by our kids I couldn’t help but feel lucky. We’ve been married for 15 years yet the love and passion that we had when we first met was still there. If anything that affection has only grown over the years. While most couple say they experience ups and downs, Mary and I’s relationship seemed to only be on the rise from day one.

I followed to the backyard to partake in the festivities of the day. As I went through the porch doorway I noticed the glass that appeared in my hand. I raised it up to my mouth. Bourbon on the rocks. Blanton’s Original Single Barrel in fact, my favorite. I took another sip and leaned up against the porch. How lucky was I to be standing here watching the love of my life and our two beautiful children in the house that I had worked so hard to build for us. This is all I’ve ever wanted. All I’ve ever needed to get by.

As I basked in my bliss I started to notice the sun going down. I looked down at my watch. The hands on the watch face whirled around the inside of the Rolex as in fast forward. Damn, It couldn’t be time already, could it? It had all seemed to fly by too fast. I took one last sip from my bourbon as the glass disintegrated in my hand. Yep, the simulation was definitely coming to an end. It was always hard to leave but I’d be back. I always get to come back and seem to never miss a thing. A few more weeks pay and maybe I’d be able to stay a little longer next time. All the blood, sweat and tears were worth it after all. I sat on the porch swing as the house behind me started to disappear behind me. I looked down to see my dog Izzy looking up at me from the foot of the swing, her paws laying on me feet. A nice little touch of comfort. My kids continued to play in the ocean as it slowly disappeared in front of them. My dear Mary held one of them as she looked back at me with all of the love in the world in her eyes. I raised up my hand to say goodbye. Goodbye for now anyways. She smiled and they slowly disappeared into the sand.

The usual sense of sadness didn’t overtake me this time. It was a good day. A day that would get me by the coming weeks. Then I’d be back in paradise. I couldn’t wait to be back.

She had been chasing her breathing for what had felt like forever but just couldn’t seem to catch it. The air in the room seemed to have grown too thick to swallow. The taste of the last bit of smoke from the extinguished candles caught the back of her throat. The blackness of the room went on forever as she tried to find the others in her panic, trying to listen for them but there was nothing. Not a sound echoed through the room that held five friends not moments earlier.

She shuffled across the floor towards what she hoped was the door. The decaying wood underneath her hands and knees stuck into her like little needles. Tears fell from her cheeks silently as she felt her hands move over the thick dried paint they had put there earlier in the night. She knew that meant she was out of the circle. The door couldn’t be too much farther. The cabin had not been that big.

Her shaking hand reached up where her mind thought the doorknob was, she was going to make it out. Suddenly the cold breath on the back of her neck told her she was wrong.

This is sensual, almost sexual,

But when you are in love,

these are the things you feel,

when no demands are made.

https://voicespice.com/Player.aspx?c=p&h=EB35BB4B&j=1C8E80

I’m walking down the busy city sidewalk. My head aches from the constant stimulation. News boards flash 24/7 making it difficult to sleep at night. Advertisements competing for my attention when I can barely focus already.

With everything to focus on, nothing has value. I fell my phone buzz in my pocket. News alerts, new virtual friends online, emails from work, all vying for my attention.

I look at my watch. It’s getting late.

I look around and see everyone’s eyes glued to their screens or wearing headphones, and in their own world. Can’t say I blame them. I take out my phone and join them.

The real world is so bland and slow.

Scrolling through my feed, I see riots in Beruit, Kellogg’s trying a new brand of cereal, and the CEO Coca-Cola being accused of sexual harassment. Instant news all the time. I can stay connected with the world, more than every before.

I’m approaching a busy crosswalk. Cars zigzagging back and forth. I stop at the crosswalk without looking up, still scrolling through my feed. There’s a security breach in retail stores around the U.S. Someone from behind me accidentally bumps into me.

I stagger forward and tumble into the street. I hit my head on the concrete and felt the warm blood on my face.

I look up and see a screeching truck hurdling towards me. It can’t slow down.

Then it stopped. Not because of the breaks. It froze. I looked around, everything was frozen. The blood from my head wound continues to run.

I stood and felt no pain in my head. Everyone around me is frozen.

The cars, advertisements, people, trees, and even the birds were frozen mid-activity.

My watch continues ticking. The sun is frozen in its position among the stars.

I dropped my phone in the tumble. It’s now shattered and useless on the pavement.

And I’m stuck in a frozen world.

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

10 minutes pass.

I walk the streets of this new world searching for an escape. A way out.

Everything is frozen. People are stuck mid-stride, mid-eating a sandwich, mid-sentence, mid-driving, mid-living the life they once were.

“Are they actually frozen”, I speak aloud the first time. My voice didn’t echo in this silent world. “I guess it’s just me now.”

I continue to walk the streets hoping for some idea or some miracle to appear and get me out. I’m walking down the sidewalk to a pharmacy that has bandages for my injury.

The automatic sliding glass doors are shut. I walk to the doors. BAAM! I forgot everything is frozen. The automatic doors won’t move.

“There’s gotta be something. Crowbar. A rock!” There’s a small rock on the ground.

Albeit a small rock, but y’know beggars can’t be choosers.

With my arm cranked back, I launch the rock into the glass. The rock hits the glass, but stops. I walk closer to inspect the glass. Not a single crack. The rock is resting on the glass. I touch the glass and see the crack from the impact of the rock propagate throughout the glass, shattering it.

“So I can move time forward by touching objects.”

I kept my hands on the glass. Then I touched the frame of the door which is attached to the motion detector, which then opened the glass doors automatically.

“Of course it opens.”

Everyone inside the store is frozen as well.

I clean my head wound and stopped the bleeding.

I take my broken phone out of my pocket. “Time to find a new one.”

30 min pass.

The cell phone store is empty, but it has new phones lining the walls. I took a similar phone and switched out SIM cards with my old phone.

“Who do I dial?” I tried dialing 911, but nothing. No sound. No ringing. No dial tone. Nothing. The phones won’t work. Shit. Ok, let’s think.

“Since I can move time forward using my hands, then touching someone’s shoulder should allow them to talk.”

The cell phone store clerk is standing behind a desk. His eyes are frozen, looking at a computer screen. His hands frozen, trying to type something in.

I walk to him and place my hand on his shoulder.

He began typing and his head moved to look at my hand on his shoulder.

“Dude what are you doing”, spoke the clerk. He looked around seeing no one else around.

“I need your help” , I started. “I’m stuck in time. Everyone around me is frozen. How do I get out?”

“What are you talking about? I’m not frozen.”

I look around, realizing that we’re the only ones in the store.

“Ok, follow me outside but I need to keep my hand on your shoulder.”

I guide the clerk to his storefront. Everything around us is frozen.

“Dude, Holy Crap! How long have you been stuck like this?”

“Half an hour. Look, I need your help to get out.”

“Are we in Groundhog Day? Cause that would totally be awesome. Wait, are you Bill Murray?”

“What? NO. I NEED your help. How do I get out?”

“I don’t know. All the movies I’ve seen about time travel, involve traveling through time not being stuck in time. Why am I not frozen?”

“Cause I’m touching you. I can move time forward by touching something with my hands. But you don’t know how to get me out?”

“Other than building a time machine, No. I’m sorry. I don’t know how I’d survive.”

I let go of his shoulder.

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

40 min pass.

It’s not the lack of virtual interaction or phone access that bothers me, it’s the silence. There no audible feedback from anything. Sometimes I think I hear the wind blowing and people walking, but I’m just imagining them.

I head home to my one-bed room apartment.

It’s quiet and still as usual, but the traffic and humdrum of life ceased. I’m alone in an eerie opaque silence. Any sound would be audible to me at this point. The ants crawling on the floor. The buzzing of a fly. The gently waving of the flower.

But instead, everything is quiet and still. And dead. I try to sleep, but I can’t. The evening sun is bright.

“Ok ok ok ok ok”, I try to regain my composure. “Who else might be able to help? A scientist! A physicist. They should be able to help.”

I take out my computer to search physics laboratories near me find one that’s 5 miles from me. Towards the center of the city.

I look at the car clogged streets.

“I’ll just steal someone’s bike.”

45 min pass.

I took a rock and broke into the physics building.

“Never realized so many buildings had automatic doors”, I said to myself.

I look for someone that is a scientist.

That is harder than it seems because not all scientists wear white lab coats with glasses and frizzy hair.

The lobby is filled with frozen people, but I find a woman mid-stride carrying papers and assume she’s a physicist.

I put my hand on her shoulder. She stumbles forward dropping the papers.

“What- what-who-what are you doing?”

“I need your help. I’m stuck in time. Everyone is frozen around. How do I get out?”

She looks around realizing that everyone but the two of us are frozen.

“I- well-there-there’s a theory. Time is dependent upon entropy increasing. So you want to move time forward, increase entropy....But you’ve seem to have stopped it because time is frozen. So you’ve already done the impossible.”

“So increasing entropy is my best bet?”

“That or I don’t know what else you can do.”

“How can I increase entropy?”

She seems to be off in her own world.

“But time has stopped, so you’ve stopped increasing entropy. So time and entropy are the same thing? Or are they different?”

“How can I increase entropy.” I ask again.

“Increasing the temperature. Anything to increase the disorder.”

“Well, I stole a bike and broke the glass doors to get in here. How much disorder do I need to make?”

“Assuming time has stopped everywhere. Universe size disorder.”

“I can’t wreck the entire universe.”

“No, you can’t. I’m sorry. I don’t know what else to do.”

I remove my hand from her shoulder and leave the physics building.

- - - - - - - - - -

55 min pass.

I wander aimlessly among the streets. The sun still frozen in the sky casting a golden hue on everything.

The city does look quite beautiful, but I can’t focus on that now. I need to focus on getting out.

“Maybe a philosopher might have an answer”, I say to myself.

My voice remains the only sign of life in this silent world.

“Where would I find a philosopher? At the library? I’ll try the university.”

I ride my bike to my university and find a philosophy professor.

An old man working in his office with his back towards the window. I grab his shoulder.

The old man looks around confused and speaks in a dry tone. “What are you doing? Let go of me.”

“I’m stuck in time. I need help getting out. Everything is frozen. How do I unfreeze it?”

“Time is an illusion of the mind, it’s made up. Things move forward only because we measure it to be. We use clocks to measure time, but time does not exist. We made up time to keep track of everything.”

“What?”

“Time is a flat circle.”

“That doesn’t help. Do you how I can get out of this?”

“You must overcome the illusion. Let go of all what you perceive to be true. Nothing would be what it is, because everything would be what it isn’t. And contrary wise, what is, it wouldn’t be. And what wouldn’t be, it would.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m sorry but you might have to go gentle into that good night.”

I push him away.

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

60 min pass

“Kill myself? I can’t do that. There has to be another way. I - I can’t. I won’t.”

I wander the silent streets once more searching for answers. My watch continues to tick.

The birds mid-flight look gorgeous. The feathers are beautifully colored and soft.

“I can’t kill myself”, I said as I looked around the street.

I reach the edge of the city. A gate stops me from falling over the large precipice and into the deathly ocean and rocks below. The waves are frozen as well. Other people are standing by the fence, enjoying their evening. Lampposts are beside the gate.

The sun’s in clear view now. For the first time, I feel its warmth. A warm embrace enveloping my entire body.

I see a bench with an old homeless woman sitting on it. I join her and sit beside her.

Taking in the divine scenery one more time, my hand accidentally brushes against hers.

“Enjoying the evening?” The old homeless woman speaks in a voice full of life.

“What? Yeah- yes. It’s a beautiful evening.” I leave my hand close to hers. It’s nice to have someone to talk to before the end.

“Why is everything frozen?” She looks around seeing the waves, the people, the birds, and the trees are all frozen.

“Time has stopped. I don’t know how to escape it.”

“Why would you want to escape it?”

“What do you mean?”

“You’re frozen in time. You can do anything you want without losing anything.”

“Well, I-I miss the world. My friends. The strangers. It’s too silent without them. I miss them.”

Birds are frozen in flight nearby. People are frozen mid-stride and a seagull is perched on a fence overlooking the frozen ocean.

“At night, the bus streets would be covered in neon lights and the colors would travel miles across the city. I miss the little spot of nature in the city reminding us of our roots, providing the cleanest air and a peaceful atmosphere. On rainy days, the water perfectly reflects the city lights in the puddles. I miss it.”

“It is beautiful here. I’m glad you see it”, says the homeless woman. “Life will pass you by if you don’t pay attention.”

I stand up and walk towards the gate. The waves look supernatural the way they curve around the rocks and build upon the sea. There’s a seagull on the railing of the gate looking towards the city.

One last look, I turn towards the city and gaze upon its glory and presence. 100 years of industrialization built this.

Grabbing onto the nearby lamppost, I climb on the gate. My feet balance precariously on the smooth metal gate. The waves are still frozen below. The sunlight glistens on the frozen water.

It is a beautiful world. Too bad I couldn’t see it.

“hey”, speaks a voice from behind me.

I almost lose my grip on the lamppost and slip off the gate, but a hand grabs onto my clothes.

“Hey. You alright?”

I look back and see someone grabbing onto me.

They’re not frozen.

“You’re not frozen”, I say.

“What? No. Why would I be?” The person helps me step down from the gate. “Are you ok? Do you want to join me for dinner?”

“Yeah-yes. I’d love to.”

We walk back into the revived city to enjoy the simple pleasures of life.

In this moment, everything changed and yet nothing had happened.

“Then Jacob blessed Pharaoh again before leaving his court (Genesis 47:10 NLT).”

The Pharaoh in the Book of Exodus is a nightmare to the Israelites, but the Pharaoh in Genesis 47 allows Joseph to pick the place for his father, brothers and their families to live, even telling Joseph to “Give them the best land of Egypt (Genesis 47:6 NLT).” Jacob in turn blesses Pharaoh twice. It is inspiring to see two people from very different backgrounds get along and bless each other. In these days where constant battle lines are being drawn, I think we can learn a lot from Jacob and this Pharaoh. Thank You Lord for the examples You give of getting along with those that are different from us. Please help us all to one day be such an example, and please help me to do my part to work towards making this happen. In Jesus’ name I pray, Amen.

Oh, never have I found an out for the likes of us.

We ride to the end of the line on a Greyhound bus.

Our hearts punch in cluttered synchronicity.

Hoping for a little chivalry when I get to the city.

And maybe my self-mutilated mind will cut a break

to a girl who’s fallen on hard times.

Missing home, vestiges of pine fading.

Wanna’ lean into oncoming traffic—

wait nevermind. I’m fine.

Totally fine.

Never have I found an in for the likes of us.

Shut out from life, pariahs, anomalies we were.

When the planes came and things changed,

raining fire from above,

it was just the signal to future vigils;

a little smoke to suffocate our love.

A silver scream severed my thoughts,

when silverscreen tableaus of disaster

did manifest.

You looked to the sky with a coin in your teeth.

And a drag in your eyes that could never find rest.

And we couldn’t tell from afar if it was a bird

or a plane. And what fell was either a bomb or,

well...

Recalling those days at the fair where we met,

laughter hanging gently in the air.

Surrounded, complicitly stranded in your care.

Oh, never have I found a clear road for the likes of us.

We’ve taken to paving our own ways.

The chore of dragging our murky hearts falls on us,

lest we lose footing in these strange days.

And we stood at the top of the Ferris Wheel,

looking down on the shapes filing in below.

I looked in your eyes for the very first time,

and unbeknownst to us it began to

snow.

And on the morning of our wedding day,

with undue pride in my voice I rasply declared

“I am a woman of many strong convictions.”

And you retorted.

“I’ve seen your rap sheet. I know.”

Ambivalence my crutch, the sky stood

on my shoulders and grew heavier

each day.

Words like a band of thieves who

cleared out the orchard and fixed our

fence along the way.

Our lives such a spectrum of gray

(or so I thought).

Oh, never have I seen you

shiver that way

as you did the moment before your death.

Puzzle pieces of wall hung to shield us

from nature’s fiery breath.

And as the embers floated away with you,

passengers into the sky,

my screams crumbled to whimpers inside me.

Choked by powder, I couldn’t cry.

And now the rubble is a memory

as I stand at the precipice of this nexus bright.

Ephemera stirs off me with the wind.

The city beckons with artificial light.

And I have nothing to amend this fresh start

but the clothes on my back and

remnants of you in my heart.

And this burnt-out match I once used to keep warm...

Extinguished by a rainstorm.

Recalling by its fiery amb’r brush

your arms,

the pieces of our stolen youth,

the times we

laughed and hawed with nothing

much to prove.

We’d been playing with matches long before the busy sky

fractured our fantasy and drowned us in ‘real’.

In memorium of your burnt body splayed,

I will rein in this fear and try my hardest to heal.

I will make a life for myself.

My past won’t hold me down.

I will take this used match of mine

and burn these nightmares to the ground.

#fiction

the candlelight takes our secrets and wraps them in coils of flame. so when the morning comes, they die with it. illuminated by the absence of shadows, you took out an origami heart. pressed it into my shivering hand. the flame roared, swallowing your silhouette like an all-you-can-eat buffet. and my fingers traced roads of weathered creases and crooked folds of what could have been. some tears are mountains and rise up to meet me, while others my fingerprint glides past. your heart is torn in half, crumpled and wrinkled and full of rage. i look at the microscopic stretch of paper holding it together, no bigger than an ant. david before goliath. it is so delicate, so frail i could crush it in my palm. cleanse the weakness by obeying rules laid down upon the stone tablets of civilization for millennia. but i do not. instead, i take my virgin heart and rip it down the middle. now, we are both broken.

If anyone's reading this, I'm just a wounded soul. I've been trading most days for nine years to see if I get a glimpse of what true happiness feels like. You know, how kids flap their tongue in the wind when it rains and catch the drops from the sky to savor them? I believe that's true happiness. I also believe only children could ever achieve it.

And no, I'm not a pessimist, really. What I mean by that is that, children have the unique ability of sweeping everything under the rug. Someone dies? Oh, they're on a really, tremendously long vacation. Their toy broke? They get a new one, a better one. They couldn't have a cupcake for breakfast? No, but they had FruitLoops instead. That's simply not my case. My best friend died, but I know she's not coming back. I feel her absence in every bit of the house, and I even see her in dreams. My heart broke as soon as I turned eighteen, and up until now I haven't found a new one, a replacement. I haven't even been able to stitch it back to how it used to be. I hardly have breakfast now. I'm not hungry most of the time. 

If anyone's reading this, I just wonder why. Why people with the kindest hearts always have it the hardest. And no, I'm not tooting my own horn, though I'm conscious it may seem like it. With a fragile, kind heart, it is guaranteed you'll get hurt. You'll cry, if you're unlucky most nights, and no one will be around you to witness so. Don't believe me? It comes in the merchandise label, your birth certificate, read it yourself.

If anyone's reading this, I'm not sad. Not always, anyway. I still see the color in rainbows and sigh in admiration. I still find some types of food pretty tasty, and I still like going to the beach, though I don't know how to swim. But when I am sad, it's tough. I turn on the music to make up the ambiance, I weep over my best friend and my mother, I cry over my solitude. I don't think you've truly felt loneliness until you don't know what's wrong, exactly, something just is. It's like being itchy and not knowing where to scratch. I don't know what to change. It's the sadness that comes from being sad all the time and saying, 'Oh, come on, don't be melodramatic'. But that's the thing, you just can't help how you feel if you have a legitimately foolish heart.

If anyone's reading this, I'm sorry for turning so many moments down. I had the chance to sleep in my mother's bed for the last time the summer before she died. What did I say? 'Mom, I'm too old for that.' I had the chance to help her out when she was figuring out what was wrong with her body. What did I say? 'Mom, I've got homework to do. I'm sure you're fine.' She'd ask me out to the movies, touch me when I least expected it. Tiny trinkets of love. And what did I do? I pushed her love away, swatted her hands, made her feel guilty for loving me, her daughter.

If anyone's reading this, I'm not at my breaking point. Even at my lowest, I'm certain I can endure a little longer. After all, mother birthed a warrior. And yes, I'm blue, but that's a common occurrence for kids my age, right? Society does nothing, we refuse to do something. And so we sink. I guess I'm writing this to be a reminder of how I've been feeling for nine years. Hopefully, if anyone feels this way too, it'll be a solid embrace, a letter to tell you you can swim a bit longer, jump a bit higher, try a bit harder.

If anyone's reading this, having a lover is challenging. I know that first hand. Emotions are hard to cope with when you're so different. It gets harder, sometimes, to just push those emotions aside when you know the other one feels sad about those. Once upon a time me being sad triggered my lover's sadness, which triggered mine, and so on, and so forth. A never-ending vicious cycle. And I loved it. I love him, still to this day. I'm just saying, love comes in all emotions, a mosaic of confusing feelings and luxurious embraces. Take advantage of every single bit of those, even when it hurts.

And lastly, if anyone's reading this, I hope you know you're enough. This is a reminder to myself, hoping I'll re-read this letter ten years from now and see that, too. I want to find someone who doesn't paint my rainbows blue, someone who knows what I mean without me saying the words. You deserve that someone, too. I had that someone. My mother. And maybe I'll be lucky to have another one of those souls, someday. I pray to God that's the case.

What I mean is, if anyone's reading this, it's okay to feel alone. After all, we are alone, each and every one of us. We're just accompanying others through their solitude, feeling a bit warmer in return. It's okay to feel like nothing will ever be right again because if it ever is, it'll be the highest high you'll reach. And oh, boy, the joy you'll feel then.

If anyone's reading this, I hope it's you.

++++

this is one recycled piece i had from wtw, but i still resonate with it till this day. if you're going through a tough time, my heart's with you. you'll get through it! (and my inbox is always open).

thank you sooo much for reading :)