Who are you
To undermine my reality?
I am interested in neither your validation
Nor your condemnation.
I am the beginning and the end of my world
As if I were not I, there would be no me
And if there were no me, I would not be aware
Of any existence.

I have the power to believe as I believe
And create and destroy myself as I choose.
I am Shiva and Vishnu and Brahma
I am the Alpha and Omega.

If I did not exist, the world would go on without me.
No lives would be lost had I not been born
And the Earth won't feel another soul escaping when I die.
I am one of billions,
Irrelevant and insignificant, in truth.
But if I did not exist
I would not be aware of you
Or your various philosophies
Or anything else in the universe.

Therefore, if I was chimerical
Unreal
A sham
You would be the same, for all intensive purposes.
And I am who I choose to be.

I am my own creator and destroyer of my world.

All right.
Your pictures are officially deleted
From my camera and my Facebook.
The prints are out of their frames
Your ticket stubs are out of my box
(Until I can look at them with fond memories
Instead of sadness.)
And the sweet things you've given me are in a drawer.

All of you, hidden away.
Just like who you are was hidden away.
I'm still not sure if I ever really knew you.

I'm just glad I'm finally feeling it.
I've not had one sorrow, one lament
But you can't live without that, I guess.
So, now's the time.

Here's to the past.

I've been looking through my box.
You know.
The one I use to keep my memories
So that one day, when I'm old, I can show my children.
"This is what your mother's life was.
This is who she was, once."

But see, the problem is it's filled with you.
We were so happy once.
We were so in love.
I see these pictures of us
At proms, *****, inside your car
And I see that.

There is no way these people could not have been happy together.

But things change.

I don't have any pictures of you
From after the middle of senior year.
From when we started growing
Separately.
From when we started falling out of love.
Or at least, I did.

But I have your notes
Your photos
Your movie tickets and circus stubs.

I have your photos
And we were just so happy.
We were so together.

I'm not going back to you
I don't regret what I've done
But it's just hard to understand
And hard to see that smile
Even if it is frozen in time.

You might be coming back.
Back to Texas
Back to the few connections you have in this world.
Back to me.

I haven't seen you in a year
But nothing's changed.
We have a strange (and beautiful) relationship.

You are my best friend.
No one else has ever come close
To knowing me like you do
And being as fantastic as you are.
You are what I've wished I could be, sometimes
And you are the only one I have always
Been able to believe in
To count on.
(Though you are far too ethereal for solid plans).

You are a wanderer
A traveler, a barely-there reality.
You are blue hair and ****** piercings
Ska and gin and legs that go for years.
I wouldn't be able to count the miles.

I don't keep people.
I don't plan to remember them
Or even believe I will, most of the time.
But I always remember you
And I will always keep you
No matter how far you go.

She spent half an hour in front of a mirror this morning
Trying to make herself look
Like someone else.
Trying to make herself look
Like someone she's not.
Knowing all her work would fall apart within the hour.

Knowing she would never be able to fool herself
For as long as she needed.

Don't worry.

I
Will
Get
Over
It.

Everything is temporary.
Even when it feels like it's not.

Shame.
Self-loathing.
Slovenly, slobbering sycophant.
Stupid.
Scrofulous.

Should've stopped, sedated.

Staggering self-esteem? Sometimes.
Struggling, someday successful?
Supposedly.

Short-lived, surely.