I don’t think anyone knows what the hell they’re doing.  I mean, people think they have it all figured out but honestly, who knows? We can’t truly follow examples because everyone’s different –don’t tell me they’re not—and it’s not like we can ever have the same experiences. Not the exact same, anyways. And so I don’t think anyone knows what they’re going to do or feel each day, because we’re all a train wreck wrapped inside a fractured mind and a strong-ish body, moving through every day with the same uncertainty as a dandelion in a field of roses—we are lost. I’m not sure why we pretend; why we lie to ourselves because we say it’s not fair when other people lie. We put ourselves below others, or above them but who the hell cares? No one knows who they are, don’t let them fool you and don’t let them get you down because nobody knows where they’re going and so they’re pushing past you and sprinting in the wrong direction because maybe you’ve gotten further than them and they don’t know what to do and maybe they need people behind them to feel like they’re moving at all so let it be. Take a deep breath. You’re on your own, and they say you don’t have to be but you are. Because you live inside your mind—it doesn’t matter if you don’t want to. You are the things you think and feel and no one else is feeling them too even though they’ll say they are…it doesn’t matter. You are stronger than you think and even though you don’t know what you’re doing you can figure it out—at least for a little while. At least long enough to take a deep breath and find your next step. Nobody knows what the hell they’re doing. Every time we think we have it all figured out, and we have a map of our lives tucked safely into our back pockets the wind picks up and blows it away along with any confidence we had and we’re forced to start anew. That’s why no one knows what they’re doing. We don’t have time to map it all out. We don’t have time for anything, and that’s why we’re lost. Things happen so fast, and before we can absorb them or celebrate them or be sad about them something else happens, and we’re thrown into another frenzy of emotion that takes away our breath and drowns our hearts in confusion—there isn’t enough time. And so no one knows what they’re doing and if they did, they couldn’t do it anyways because even people who are brilliant are full of doubts. They second guess themselves and they second guess each other because they know they are brilliant but that isn’t enough. That’s never enough. Society shows us—they scream at us that we are who they say we are and if they don’t see we are brilliant there’s no point in trying to prove that we are because it doesn’t matter.  None of it matters. And I don’t know why I feel that way but I do and I have and I always will until someone shows me I am wrong. And I mean shows me. I am tired of words and all their empty words no one knows how to use them right and they say them without a thought about how they will enter other people’s minds or lace their dreams I want someone to show me. I can’t show myself. I could try and I have before but the truth is I don’t know what the hell I’m doing. And maybe I’m pretending when I say that everyone feels the same way or maybe I am painfully correct—no one knows. No one cares. I am just as much a dandelion in a field of roses as a rose in a bouquet of weeds and so is everybody else. The problem is that dandelions are a menace and roses have thorns and there isn’t time to change the world or smooth things out because there isn’t time for anything. Nobody knows what they’re doing. So how does the world work? How do we breathe in and breathe out knowing that we’re lost and so it everyone else and no one can tell us how to be found because we cannot follow examples. Every single thing effects every single person in a different way, and no matter how microscopic their change in perspective is it still exists. The print made by our thumbs is not the only thing that is completely unique about us. If we could all be identified by the pictures in our minds and the music in our souls and not the masks we wear to muffle it all the world could be a better reality. Because for some of us not knowing is too much. We fall asleep at night or during the day and we don’t want to wake up because whenever our eyes are closed our hearts are, too. The world painted on our eyelids is better than the dreamless chasm that is reality and maybe that’s dramatic and maybe it’s too deep but no one cares anyway. These worlds are inside of me and they’re not just going to melt away so I have to put them somewhere. I don’t know what I’m doing. I want people to understand that. There’s always something more. I’m not sure what I mean by that. It’s just whenever I’m happy there’s something else that reminds me why I wasn’t before. I know who I am, better than a lot of people, but I don’t think it matters. I’m wearing a mask just like everyone else even though the music in my soul is so loud it shakes me. I drown it out and cover it up with the labels taped across my mouth and pinned to my back by people who just want to sleep. I’m not saying things should change. I don’t think they will. I don’t think I can change them but accepting that dandelions belong with roses is the only place I can start. Being lost is okay and being as scared of your own thorns as you are of everyone else’s is okay, too. Setting aside your mask and letting music blare from inside of you is beautiful and everyone knows it, but it they pretend it’s not…that’s okay. But I guess I’m sick of OKAYs. I want brilliance. I guess for now I will keep my mask on, and I’m okay with saying—I’m BRILLIANT with saying mine is a medley of both finger prints and music; weeds and a rose’s glow, and the beautiful and bold blackness of all these words I’ve torn from exactly Who I Am.