Letters, voice memos, videos, pictures anything I can do to leave you memories of me before I embark on the next chapter of this journey.

No, I did not see the light at the end of the tunnel. Did not undertsand all the euphemisms about finding a reason, a will, amongst the inspirational posters hanging along the doctor's white walls.

My eardrums bleed, beg me to stop blaring music, pumping the booming bass directly into my brain because at least in those few moments the bad sounds dim. The voices battle against the rythmic, upbeat pop songs I play to drown out my current reality.

It's crazy, I seem to think, as I lay in bed again at night wishing more than anything that I could sink into the dark depths of the sheets and wake up the next morning a souless shell, because at least then I would not have the capacity to feel what I feel now.

I've tried to no avail to explain the claws of my subconcious that continue to pull at my feet, whispering sweet nothings into my ears, reminding me that the sweet release of a life not yet half lived is only mere moments away. The edge of the abyss always there, always towing the line between the "jokes" and intentions followed by actions followed by inevitable consequences.

What were once calls of help are now full blown battle crys. What were once outlandish thoughts are now full blown plans for the adjectives in my obituary.

See we all know how this movie ends, the sequels canceled due to budget cuts and a total lack of creative freedom, the story not yet finished and perhaps tucked back on a shelf in a pile of other manuscripts and news clippings of stories ended too soon.

It's crazy, the way that thoughts bounce through my brain, echoing along the walls of the chasm in my mind. The people I care for the most, long gone, the ones I know I've failed are far too deep into the great beyond for me to voice my apologies now.

Those who are left are the mere souless bodies, walking the face of this Earth pretending to love until their sense of obligation fades away. They've long sold their souls to whatever beings exist in the underworld in order to buy themselves their own ticket to surviving their tumultuous existence.

As the credits roll...I beg no one to ask themselves what they could have done differently. I beg no one to get introspective and challenge what brought us all to this conclusion.

Instead, I ask you what good is a story that has no ending? Were there in fact lessons to be learned along the way, or did we merely just waste each other's time? What good are memories if they all fade to black eventually.

Congrats on your participation trophy as a valued member of my life. When the bar was set so low, most of you still found a way to trip and tumble over it anyway.

The funny thing about the credits at the end of a movie is that...no one ever sticks around to see them. So let's not kid ourselves and pretend we've started caring about the plot now that the story's almost over. What were once main characters in this tale are now barely honorable mentions and who remains now but an old VHS tape in a box in the attic, destined and praying to be forgotten?

Who would've known the devil I chose...looks like an angel when she's sleeping.

Who would've thought a snake's venom tastes so sweet when I'm drinking the nectar of the woman I loved.

You are but a story, in a chapter, in the long book of my life...and here I thought we'd be co-authors together.

No. Because as much as I miss the idea of you, our four walls, our future together. I realize those ideas are merely thoughts of who I wanted you to be...not who you are.

I longed for a place atop your mind for so long. Spent days wondering what I had to do to make you smile - never stopping to question if I was happy with you...or the merely the mirage that I created in my mind.

I spew lies to myself, tell myself I won't find better than you. I don't deserve better than you, that I fumbled the biggest hail mary in the history of this field and yet as I stand near the endzone in the 4th quarter...I wonder if it's better to just to take knee and lose this game so I can come back and play another season.

A hail mary....is a last ditch effort...with a low probablity of success...it was never meant to be sustainable...I see that now.

We did not know each other very long...and yet I crashed into life with you 1000 miles a minute flying so fast I couldn't hear that little voice in my head...you know, the one that tells people not to fall in love overnight, not to trust the woman who lives with a smile on her face, a chip on her shoulder, and stake sticking through her  heart....

No. I do not know what is on the other side of this mountain, but I'll be ****** if I sit at the base crying for someone who does not have the capcity to love me, no I'll be ****** if I don't reach for the stars in search of a better tomorrow.

The thing they don't tell you when you shoot for the stars...is how likely you are to hurl straight pass them...forever lost in the abyss of space.

So I ask you...is it better to shoot for the stars with a chance of missing...or stay on a planet that is actively dying...a little more every day?

He looks in the mirror, distraught. Is he...getting old?

Because it felt like only yesterday he was chasing the woman of his dreams and fawning over his little girl.

He hasn't felt like himself in a long time, the mental illness drowning his thoughts of truth and reality, blinding his minds eye.

Some days he doesn't surface from the rolls of waves pulling him under, some days he flies higher than any kite in the sky because this is his reality.

He is bipolar. He is desperate. He is alone and the fear of growing older slowly gnaws at his insides.

He misses the way things used to be, the world is but a confusing shell of what it once was...much like himself.

He clings to memories of a happier past, a brighter time when the future didn't look so bleak and the kiss of death didn't seem to be pulling him in closer with every breath he takes.

He longs for love like most rugged men do, and yet he finds only a small portion of the comfort he once had in her arms.

He longs for a life filled with success, where he doesn't have to worry anymore, where he can finally fill that hole that has been empty since the dawn of his existence.

Some days he longs for the waves to pull him under, to fall asleep one last time and leave nothing behind except a life lived of regret and a world in which he no longer fits in.

And yet when he wakes up each morning, a look of disappointment crosses his face as he realizes another day trudges on.

This is the story of my father and the man he grew to be, or maybe the man he always was. His story is not yet completed, his chapter not yet closed and like it or not,

I am his sequel.

"He's young now." I look into the mirror. "He'll grow on you."

"He's learning. Unwise in his few years, low in confidence."

I ponder..." Will he always be so...scrappy?"

Here stands a young man, looking in the mirror. Still baffled at the reflection he sees.

There goes a woman, his mother, still determined to have a youngest daughter.

People say "He's changing, look in the mirror...see for yourself."

What I see is a scared young man....

scared to live, scared to take up space, scared to make a sound in the noise of society's never ending chaos.

She's trying...she says. To understand. To support. To move on. She knows not her faults nor the effect her words have on you...she only knows that one day her daughter stopped wearing dresses, cut her hair, and left a life of pink and pageantry behind.

No, she doesn't know what she does, but she can see the light in your eyes began to dim when she calls you her little girl.

His father....slowly decaying, pushes the ideas of a son out of his mind. Refuses to see the beard and changing physique in front of him, clings desperately like a moth to a flame to his little girl who he swears never grew a day past the age of five.

Back when things were simple. Back when there wasn't so much **** change. Back when things mattered less about pronouns and more about peace of mind and reputation.

When I grow up, I want to be the change that I wish I saw in all of you. I want to embrace who I love with open arms, decide that I'd **** for the man I see in the mirror. Let all those who disapprove be ******.

Because if I couldn't protect the light in that little girls eyes so many years ago, I'll be **** sure that the man I become is one who will protect mine.

Intoxicating...her laugh, her voice, her scent.

Dangerous...her sense of flight and fear of being hurt like all those times before.

"Look at me", she says as her eyes drown mine in complete and utter kindness, a safety I have not yet felt in this lifetime.

"Take my hand", she says as she leads me over the edge and into the unknown abyss of a life I've not yet felt the freedom to live.

They say stars burn at billions of degrees and that meteors crash faster than the speed of sound and yet still the only thing I know for certain is that when she speaks...the synapses of my brain begin to alight like supernovas.

"You better not **** this up." I say as I lay my head down at night, wondering how something so good could've happened to my life.

It's the forth down of a quarter life crisis and desperately when I needed it most, someone threw me a Hail Mary and though I'm the most unathletic person on the planet, I'll be ****** if I don't run arms open wide straight into the endzone.

Because I don't know what comes next, I cling to the realty of her lips, the smile in her gaze, and the feeling that our tomorrows together will be infinitely better than all the yesterdays before.

Thank you for pulling me from my glass house of insecurity and fear, and finding a place in this world for my blossoming life to flourish.

Here's to that next ride out past the city limits, where we'll get lost amongst the fields, the stars, and each other.

I've cut ties with you. That's way easier said than done.

I've shed your lies the way a snake shed's it's skin, slowly and then all at once.

I've cut ties with you. Zero contact. I've lost you in the depths of my mind ever confined to red tinged memories.

Every song we used to sing growing up has turned to high pitched whines that hurt my ears.

Every recipe you taught me to make now tastes of poison.

I long for you and despise you all at the same time.

Right here, in this very online forum, I shouted into the depths 6 years ago that I'd lose you. I'd break through the shackles of trauma that you've saddled me with.

I'd be the "wave that sinks your imaginary boat".

I think we're both hurting, but only one of us is moving forward.
You, my love, are stuck in a past full of suppressed memories and fake identities.

So long my dear, I thank you for the good times and condemn you to loneliness for the bad.

I only hope I have the strength to follow through. To keep seeing the truth beyond your half hearted apologies and your venomous lies to do better.

You are not a parent, at least not to me anymore.

You are a cog in a machine of hatefulness and betrayal, you are the weeds that grow in the garden of good, you are terrible human being.

That little girl you brought into the world all those years ago deserved so much better than you.

And while I can't change the past, can't save her from the nights she'd wished she weren't breathing any longer, I can certainly make sure she's never hurt again. Her innocence while long gone is something to be built anew, her ambition, something you'll never touch. That fire in her eyes, a flame you'll never quell.

Goodbye mother. I wish you everything you deserve, and nothing more.