When will I ever be satisfied?

Will the earth have to shake and the heavens burst open and the almighty whomever have to come down specifically to me and award me for my good improvement?

Will I have to become a perfect, ethereal being who feels nothing but strength and goodness and saves the entire land?

Will I have to not be me anymore?

What do I have to do to stop feeling so defeated by merely doing things that come naturally to my breathing self?

What do I have to think to stop hating myself at every ounce of weakness that i show, no matter how human?

What do I have to give up to ever not be inevitably dissatisfied with myself every once in awhile, having to accept this occasional misery or frustration to keep myself alive?

What does it take to be happy with who I am?

What is it like to be satisfied?

I don't know if I've ever known.

My heart has walked the line, finding its place in its world and the place in my world where you settle and its all a bit of a whirl.

For a woman who doesn't believe in soulmates, you've become a lovely enigma of where I can't picture my life without you and you are the only one I want. Where you are the only star bright enough for me to want to fall through the tremendous skies to try to catch.

Its my constant hypocrisy, looking at you and seeing this heart I want only for me, a heart that seems to be so attuned to my own beats. A heart that seems so fateful sometimes I wonder how there cannot be some sort of universal intervention to lead me to you. It was all by such chance. I never expected, or even truly asked, for you.

Yet here you are.

And as I blink into the dim starlight, I think I know what you are, and how I can live between my two philosophies of you being meant for me yet our souls being nothing but the best coincidence I've had the honor to experience.

Its like I've said, writing, if anything, is my soulmate. I was made to write, to caress words like a fabled lover. Writing is on my belt, always on my hip, burning at the tip of the bone and something that will never leave me, no matter what. It is my personal and promised companion in an uncertain universe.

Yet something, in my darkest hours, sent me the brightest star I've ever seen to light my way and guide me towards my authorial happiest. True, I can nearly see less-lit paths in which I could be happy and even possibly, in a way, just as happy as this one.

But with writing on my hip, and this twinkle in my eye, you showed up and were everything I could have wished for and more.

That's what's so crazy about all of it; I even did wish for it, long ago when I was knee-deep in a passion for fantasy and true loves. I dreamt of a sandy hair boy with a flare for rebellion, loving all things unique. A man who liked to stick himself on motorcycles and see how fast they can go, who felt often alone but never let it ruin who he was. A person so strong yet so internally solitary a person like couldn't help but be magnetized.

I thought of my character as the hero, but oddly enough my proudest role for her, my facsimile, was to stand by the sandy-haired man and love him in his brilliance in a way only she could see. To be the only one to stand by him wherever life may lead, and be as damnedly brilliant right by his side.

But their connection and love?

It was the true protagonist of my stories of the Sander boy and his quirky girl.

Part of it is fantastically terrifying how much of them I see in us, of how much of my teenage love dream came true when I never asked it to. By the age of eighteen I had abandoned romance. I thought no one would want me, not the way I was. I didn't think there would ever be a man, let alone a sandy-haired one, in my future.

And then there was you.

Its ludicrous. Its all madness, looking at you sometimes. I never thought I'd be so lucky. I never planned for you. Yet look where we are.

We're brilliant.

So in its own way, my ideas hold true. I don't quite believe in soulmates, for love is unexpected and telling yourself you only get it once is cold and painful. But I look at the paths before me and you illuminate the one that has me and you and it looks so beautiful.

I am writing and I am so happy, and you are so brilliant right next to me and we're so happy.

I could be happy elsewhere. But after knowing you and following you like the north star, letting your light be my guide, picking you out of all the stars I could have had....

I can't regret anything, and I can't picture myself loving anyone so brilliantly and passionately as I feel with you. I could be wrong, I could be a fool, but **** it. Tonight, for every night I've known you, your brightness has surprised me and filled me with so much love.

For now, you are my north star, the thing that directs my path as I illuminate the night with you. I might be a pessimist, and maybe the universe did plan this all perfectly like a well-constructed art-piece. Or maybe I'm being an optimist, and we only found each other by luck, two ships in the night that happened to collide happily.

No matter the circumstances, there's no one else I love to traverse the infinite sky with more. After some polishing I've found my own brilliance, but with you it grows so much stronger.

I found in you what was lost in me, and I'll stay with you as long as you stay bright on me.

There it was
In my head
Screaming at me
Wishing I was dead
Between the pages
I learned to live again
Be somewhere other
Than the wasteland
In my head

I learned to be a princess
A warrior
A brilliant fool
Anything but what was actually true
Grew chameleon skin
To flicker better
Between character to character
Just like the weather
All to forget the truth of what
Lingered within my head

It was fun playing perfect
Being everyone's art
But things started to get hazy
When cracks began to part
My body became numb
I let fingers crawl all over
Payment to get anyone
To glue me back together
But I couldn't really run
Nothing could blot out its stead
Unbeknownst to me
I never had been free
From the temptation to be dead
Preying on my head

So I buried in words harder
Trusting the denial
Pretending to be anything else
Must be a new character
Couldn't really just be me
The fingers grabbed harder
And I hungrily let them still
If my flesh became shredded
What would be left to ****?
Yet determination was stronger
Than my bloodlust to ****** me
It only left me screaming
Left me lonely
Left me in dread
From the death taking residence
Inside my pretty head

Our character knew
She could not live such asunder
The death would win
If she did not change her color
Through wretched teeth
And fierce blows of power
The foolish, brilliant princess warrior
Refused to lose her mental tower
Through years of war
And struggle
And pain
She won the rights to herself again
And with her mighty sword led
Away the demons
Inside her head

And now the tale halts
Where the chameleon begins to change
A lovely new form
One haphazard and so strange
Its a visage mixed of all
The characters played before
Yet now the skin's unmoving
And the parts become a whole
The fingers are only one
And soft and loving to touch
And pills and words are now used
For good instead of a crutch
The death has hissed its final roar
The reader final quits
They keep on reading stories
But they do not negatively benefit
Its more at peace
But still a clustered composure
Within the head
Of a happy dreamer much bipolar

If I close my eyes I smell the butter of fresh popcorn and hear the whirring of a laptop powerful and bright. Can taste the dichotomy of the crisp melting of the popped kernel in my mouth, feel the happiness of being in a desk chair in front of a screen and surrounded by books.

Then I open my eyes and see I have to edit everything I've written to be even vaguely coherent.

Happiness is hard when you're never satisfied. When the childhood curiosity stapled to your youthful lips never unpinned as you aged. Neither did the idealistic expectations. Couple that with a pessimistic anxiety disorder and a mood disorder to swing things between the two disparities and it gets a little more complicated.

I've been my most relieved and anxious in this place of empty, of nowhere, that I've settled myself into for the next three weeks. A piece of me enjoys the rest and possibilities. The other hates it for those exact reasons.

I need to breathe, I tell myself. Being so separate is my fault, I insist.

But another voice in my head pipes up quietly, offering a new idea. I'm demonizing myself for not being ideas, for not being normal, for not being one.

But perhaps be bipolar, in more ways than just disorder, is exactly what concocts the human I like being.

Perhaps the great empathetic thoughtfulness yet great introspection work so well in tandem.

Maybe the assertive extroversion yet pleasured isolation balance in their own, special way.

In a way, I might just need to look back on the old Sunday afternoon specials and speak to myself the lessons of their half-hour programs. In particular, admit maybe its ok if I'm weird. perhaps its ok I just be the own odd balance that is me.

The Nowhere, the empty, can be itchy with the possibilities sometimes. Yet these moments, that help me breathe through my own neurotics and idiosyncrasies, may just be the best kind of nothing.

Maybe the bothersome nowhere can also be something grand and great for me as well.

There perhaps is another side of nowhere, and perhaps it is my favorite.

It's odd to think of how much time I spend working out a mental fallacy or problem in my head or on paper and then it's just gone. It's like a rhetorical analysis and my life is a story.

Today i was struggling a tad about spending this weekend at my boyfriend's and him not spending too much time with me. But immediately afterward, I summed that yes, he's happy to see me, but I was the one who asked to visit and he already had plans of things to do. So Though he appreciated my company, he has others things to do and enjoy as well.

This is not OUR weekend or holiday. I am just participating in it.

It was like this welling emotion of hurt suddenly was alleviated, knowing that it was not about shirking me; it was about getting things he had already endeavored to do done.

Thinking gets me to many better places than places I previously was before.

I solve a lot of my own problems staring at a screen and typing them out, or just staring and thinking in general. It gets me through issues that don't need to be issues. Its just my chemical imbalances ramping up small emotions that need not be catastrophic, but can sometimes turn to be.

Similarly, I've solved why I'm an extrovert writer. My only friends were people in stories, and though I adore human energy and potential, real human beings do not compare to the neatness and logic of story characters. They can both feel as real, but real people can change on a dime, or be growthless, or waste their time and learn nothing.

In a story we'd call that unrealistic.

So I'm content being around people, feeding off their glorious energy, but also fine not being too interactive at all times. I can hear voices in movies, I can meet people in stories. I can suffice on the people between pages, and also the people out of pages who feel strong and real and connective to me.

Thinking and reflecting is one of my strongest traits. Telling my therapist about this trait was one of the first times I realized my possible brilliance. I told her I reflect and work out problems with myself, as it was the only way I figured out how to live when things were worst, and she was stunned. She says that trait, one used to often, can sometimes be attributed to genius.

Understandably, I was also stunned.

Reflecting on reflecting even feels rejuvenating. I am so proud of this skill, the skill that kept me alive and now is helping me learn to be self-sufficient. The growth is exponential. The usability is astounding.

I feel so lucky to be able to have it.

1.) I hate that you ruined my chance to be a kid. You stole my childhood and teenage years, you know? We all it isn't like the movies, but I never even got a chance to try. You made me scream so quietly that when I couldn't shush you anymore it became like thunderclap, deafening anyone close. I  pushed people so far away that they became islands to me, and I couldn't swim. That, or I wanted them to love me so badly that I squeezed them into oblivion and suffocated them with my demons.

2.) I hate that I felt unloved because of you. I could have been loved, you know? It wasn't like I was a *****. There were boys that wanted me, even ones I wanted too. But you made me this tumultuous fire that too many lovers saw only as a sultry, exciting spark until it completely engulfed them, burning them to a crisp. I spent my young love years unloved and assuming any flaw was a cause for expulsion, and any affection was a sign of destiny. They both were neither.

3.) I hate that you made me feel lonely. You kept me in a tower, and fed me just enough so I wouldn't die. You gave me this grand craft that, previously, I could barely use except to stare at blank computer screens and wished my fingers could pour out the things in my head. You gave me this gift that kept me breathing, but also kept me lonely. If I didn't know how to write so well to myself, maybe I would have screamed enough for somebody to listen.

4.) I hate that you stole my intelligence. I might be brilliant. I couldn't even think about that, was convinced it was a fluke that I was so smart when I was little. But now that you've sorted out yourself, I can feel it re-emerging and I feel so sick knowing how much better I could have been; what I could've done. The years wasted, only able to use that brilliance to keep myself from cutting my own cord.

5.) I hate that you make me a lot to handle. You make me bubble with thoughts and words and sometimes, a lot of times, it overwhelms people. I'm a tornado, a twister, in constant, energetic motion. Not many people can keep up with me, and it makes me lonely. You made me lonely because no one wanted to stay; that or they couldn't. Its hard when a new person all the time.

6.) I hate that you made me so strong. I've been on the brink of death, destruction, ruin, pain, and yet I've always come back. For the severity of the things in my head that storm themselves around, I'm an anomaly. I spend half of an intake therapy session having to go into gory details of my inner workings, because without a record its not as easy for them to see me. Yet I never fall, no matter how much sometimes I wish I would. Guess, just like you, its in my synapses.

7.) I hate that you've alienated me from my family. They are nothing like me, and they don't understand me. Very few of them try, even less sympathize. Many call it a phase. Like my entire existence the past couple years is just a new level of the teenage rebellion I never had. I now know what kind of people they are, what kind of people they are capable of being. Their jokes and energy aren't worth the words they inflict behind closed doors. No family should question me on everything. No family should call my life a phase. No family should think the person I love most isn't worth it because they haven't met him.  No family should ask me to hide who I am because its better that way. I don't regret walking away. I regret having to.

8.) I hate that you make my relationship harder. I feel things too hard, and I know that's my issue. But it being such a core part of my system makes it hard for me to integrate files. We're learning, and growing, like we always do. I can't help but smile at how he motions just like I do. He's the only one I've ever met who keeps up with me. Everyone else I've always left behind, one way or another. Though hard, you do make my relationship stronger.

9.) I hate that I love parts of you, because they're my best parts. I'm already smart, but you make creativity a shade of bold that I can't even comprehend. Its hard to share with my peers when they stare at me like I'm an odd anomaly. You make me an anomaly, but as a writer, a creator, an artist, its remarkable. I can write about people like no one else I know can. I can write about emotional experiences I've never felt, but you've helped me see. If I can feel a glimmer, of that emotion, I can understand depths I've never felt. You've made teachers think I was abused, beaten, and much more, even when I wasn't. But I could feel it. My devotion to my art makes that pain a worth and I hate that.

10.) What I hate the most, though, is that I don't hate you. You have made me who I am. I wouldn't quit you, even if I had the choice. You make everything harder, and you make me scream, and you make me work. But you also help me be brilliant, and help me be understanding, and help me shine. You help me love and grow and breathe, even when you're crushing my lungs. Its maddening and barely makes sense, but I know that much. I know that no matter how angry, upset, shameful, any negative emotion, that behind it, that's not my strongest feeling towards you. My strongest is that you are one of my favorite things about me. I hate that people can call me crazy because of you, but I accept it because I'm my happiest crazy. I'm my happiest with you.

In a forest
My heart is a thrumming drum
in a symphony of silence.
There is peace in the trees
within the
natural beauty
of a forest in its prime.
Just the forest and I
together and loved
restful and free.

Safety amongst the foliage
has another name
too.
It crackles at my feet
watching the comradery
of the voiceless giants.
My own platoon
is none.
The forest keeps me from
being utterly
hopelessly
alone.

Everyone has enemies
No exception am I.
Mine lies behind my eyes
a friend-fearing demon
accepting only
naturally towering mutes.
Trees can't reject me
humans can.
I walk to feign fearlessness
No one needs know
I stay alone
of not strength
but
terror.