it's okay to have feelings, but it's not okay to keep them all to yourself. stop viewing those tears as weakness; start appreciating them for what they really are: progress! forget all the ******* you've been through. remember that you're more worthwhile than ever. we love you, we're proud of you, and we appreciate you. and yes we will wait for you, no matter how long it takes.

and he wonders when this dream will end. he wonders if it's actually a dream, or just a particularly persistent fragment of a memory. "all is made to thrill," he thinks, "smiles are fleeting and beauty is still." and still, even if it'd all been done before, who wouldn't give their whole life to do it all again?
but he knows there's no time. the summer is already up and running and we're so tired and they're all so disappointed. people make promises that break all the time. although there's an assurance in assuming, at times he missed the simple comforts of being sad.

They drove out one night, on a whim. It was a sprawling thing; a shrine guarded by foreign collection, reconfigured and asleep on their feet. They crept through the open doors, tiny frogs and spiders and lizards littering every inch. A droning permeates from somewhere deep within. A discarded book upon the floor, not but records of sacrifice and lies to the dead. Suddenly, a spark. An inescapable glow, this mess of fire, growing brighter all the while. Now the tools, the taste, the tenor. A man gives what he can. The offering will take, or it won't. And you, with all those sticky fingers! They steal away again, homeward bound; the faintest remnants of that glorious spark dancing in their downcast eyes. It will take, or it won't. Everything is static, nothing stays the same. They know that nothing lasts forever.

Spent a month just writing, anything and everything that ever came to mind. During all this, I realized I'm not dead, but dying. The point is, I'm trying. I've come to terms with the fact that I'm no longer afraid. I've got nothing left to say to you. And although I know sometimes things just don't work out, I'm hoping this isn't one of them.

I was supposed to go to the bank. You guys are stressing that I was just chewing the inside of my cheek and I'm trying not to watch the game or sit in silence. I hear him finish, for the time being anyways, but when she went outside to pick the grass, she found nothing but flowers left. She lay face-down upon the ground and wept. The I.V. drips, the days drag on. The applause is silent, and that silence is deafening. Despite all of that, despite the noise and the pain and the gore, that night you raced on home to mother, and you told her "Everything's going to be alright", and you know it is, because there's always enough love in the valley. Amen.