you start to see things a lot differently once you set an expiration date on yourself.
there's beauty in the small things; the feel of warm dirt beneath bare feet, the gentle clucking of chickens, the brush of a cat's whiskers against your cheek. you suddenly want to watch every sunrise and sunset, to count every star, to take long walks through nature. you eat what you want and no longer care what people think because it doesn't matter, you will be dead in five days and no one will remember your name.
you are now nothing but a faceless silhouette, and no one cares enough to remember the little moments but you collect them like a child collecting seashells. you treasure every glance and exchanged word and half smile sent your way. you settle for the bare minimum because that's all you have ever received and will ever receive.
you find optimism in the dark moments; you **** a mosquito only to lay beside its crumpled body and watch a tiny ant drag it away, carrying three times its weight and you are jealous. you are jealous because you can't even handle yourself, and you are not strong enough for this world, not smart enough to figure out what you're supposed to do with your silly little life. you tip your chin back to the sky and wonder if the sun ever loved the moon, if the rose ever loved the daisy, if anyone could ever love you, and you're afraid that you'll never know.
but the fear within us is all the hope we are afraid to hope for. if you are not afraid, then you have no hope, and what are you then? free to die in silence and gray ashes and dead flowers from people who stopped coming to visit you long ago?
how could the sun love the moon, how could the rose love the daisy? if we are only fit to love those within our standards, then what is love really? chosen? picked at random? or is it a passion, a longing, a scrap of a song sung to a star?
and then comes the reality, that we are finite beings, and it doesn't matter if the rose and the daisy got their happily ever after, and it doesn't matter if the sun loved the moon because the moon loves you and the stars welcome you with open arms and yet you still cower on this pathetic earth, and it begs the question,
are you afraid to fly?
a letter i wrote to myself on Thursday. we must not forget to appreciate the small joys in life.