you fall down, you have no choice but to get back up.
when you get back up, you lose something; a piece of your strength, energy, will... something. keeping on is not free.

you spent the day in bed. too exhausted to get up. you're so sick of bed. your body feels angry for being so still. you just didn't have it in you to move around today. this is fatigue. it isn't fair. in fact, it's cruel.

there is no feeling good anymore. there are what some poor souls refer to as "good pain days" which is just another way of saying
"I know what it's like to be in such bad pain that you want to die, and I'm just thankful today's pain was at least not the worst it has ever been"

you're on no kind of schedule. it'd be a blessing just to eat and sleep at normal times, with some regularity. you feel like crap all the time. you gain weight and lose muscle. you feel weak and heavy.

lie in bed. peace of bedtime is a foreign concept,  your body aches to be comfortable, and you may doze off for 3 seconds before jerking awake by inconsiderate muscles that don't really care that you haven't had a solid hour of rest in 2 days.

pills are a blessing and a curse. relief and side effects. they allow you to rest and they mess with your brain. you'll get so sick of taking pills and you'll begin to hate them for needing them.

the very best you see in your future is surviving. that's what fibromyalgia is. your job is getting through the days of pain and exhaustion, the physical and mental detriments that come with it. your life is a fight, and you are so, so, so, so tired of fighting. you always, always, always feel you have no more fight left in you.



you're 21 years old and you fondly and bitterly remember a time (not too long ago) when you thought some things in life would just be givens; career, family, adventure, accomplishments.... health.

you're 21 years old and you learn that you get none of the above. you're too tired, you hurt too much, and this disease seems to only get worse... it seems to have taken everything from you

and then it takes some more.

"from the second that i was born, it seems i've held a loaded gun."

fourteen. ts, i choose my ******* boyfriend over you. you were always there for me. i never say sorry.

fourteen. em, you make me feel special. i make you feel stupid for liking me. you spend three years trying, i spend that time acting like a *****. i never said sorry.... for this.

fifteen. tdl, i lie to you over and over, mostly when i promise to be careful with my own life. i say sorry and i mean it a little. selfish. ******.

fifteen. al, life became about me in the worst way. i apologize two years later, two years too late. all i talked about was me and my ****. you had ****, too.

fifteen. jm, i hold your hand to a kitchen burner. this is the worst thing i have done and probably  will ever do. i was so tired of your hands. i spill mouthfuls of apologies to you for a year. i am still unsure if i owed you a single one.

fifteen...... you deserved better and my **** choices ruined your chances. i am so
so
so
sorry.

sixteen. em, i use you all year. i use you when i want and throw you away when i want. then it happened, you were thrilled, i was terrified. i fix my problem and simultaneously destroy hope in you. i said sorry and didn't mean it at all. you hate me to this day and you should.

sixteen. di, i make you a million promises. i find out everything you want in life and i pretend to be that. you hit me in a parking lot for this. i still like to pretend you never happened.

sixteen. al, bathroom floor. tears. panic. phone call. terror in your eyes. i am still so sorry. selfish.

seventeen. im sorry to myself for a million things. i wake up when i find true love and realize how reckless i have been. i feel like apologizing to everyone.

nineteen. mt, i am two years into this with you and still my heart breaks for her.
i don't dare tell you.
it'd break yours.

twenty. mt, i have to follow my heart. i have to run to her and let you take the fall. you were my best friend. i am so very sorry.



the hurt ive caused haunts me every day of my life.
the guilt i feel are weights of varying impossibilities.
i don't think i will ever learn to let go.

I feel guilty being reminded
Of all the many moments my heart ached for you
While I was supposed to belong to someone else.
I feel guilty
For also feeling something so right
About my entire existence yearning for you when you were a thousand miles away, years in my past. Your words were ghosts in me,
I had finally, finally forgotten your scent unless I tried really, really hard,
(Your smile, I admit, was branded in the chambers of my heart. It would never leave me, and I never wanted it to,)
and I had everything my brain thought I needed then,
But I didn't
And my heart and soul knew it.


In the most honest of dawns and dusks,
Logic forsaken me, my heart and I packed up and ran to you.




Is the wrong thing really the wrong thing if you do it for the most profound, paramount of all reasons?
Would the people we hurt forgive us if they felt the depth and truth of our reasons?; of this love? If they knew it was so meant to be, we may as well have our very own North star in the sky to guide us together always, a stack of novels and poetry and art that this love inspired?


It's a funny kind of guilt.
I believe I did wrong...  I do.
I also believe I would do a million times worse for you.

how soft you spoke
when you asked, "really?"
as i held the ring out in front of you,
or how my heart was in my throat,
and the warm relief spilling over me when you said you would.

   two days later when we slept all day,
woke in the dark to a heap of problems,
we solved them and i felt we could do anything together. we spent hours and hours through the night together. just together. cold breezes hitting us, the world was asleep, my heart was quietly admiring yours and you laughed so much that night.

   the way you look sleeping next to me now. the sound of soft snoring always calming me. my advice the world would be, "find the one whose snoring you find perfect when you never even imagined something like snoring could be precious to you"

I will love you for the rest of my days and beyond. I will always save you. You make me believe in life, love, and higher powers. After all, this had to have been God-willed fate. I believe something more powerful than us created us for one another.
I will always want to give you everything, I will always take too many pictures of you, and tell you all the ways I find you perfect, tell you every part of you I have fallen in love with you. You may not believe me, and you may get oh so tired of my doting, but I will continue to try to convince you that I love every single piece of you, your heart, your soul, your mind. Were you made that way for me? Or was I made to love you?
And I will never forget these moments, or the beautiful million before them, because they're everything. You're everything to me.

i've always been a liar.

did you know i can't lie to you?

i cant do it.

i am a wonderful liar, i think i was born with it.

my talents are wasted on your captivating soul.

i can't lie to you, it hurts me. i don't know how.

how did you make me feel these things?
i honestly thought i was some kind of sociopath,
and you came along and made me feel.

i don't think i could ever comprehend
the wildfire you incited in my heart
or why.
i can't really know
how you took a heart that never worked right
never beat logically
always beat down
and held it in your hands.
(you keep it there, you pump life into it steadily)
i won't ever experience proficiency
in the field of life-ending, life-starting, life-altering
love.
all i understand now is all i understood at seventeen when i kissed you;
that i would die without you
that no one could compare
that my heart was yours for the taking, i was forever yours for the breaking, you could leave me shaking and aching and my world quaking.
the profound inferno rages and blazes on,
leaving me always smoldering in your absence,
while my heart roars with yearn and appreciation
for the light.