In sad songs and heartbroken poems
you always hear about the kids
who are told they won't make it.
That they will be nothing when they're old.
For once I want to hear something about the kids
who are told that they should be
and will be
everything.
Only to come to the realization
at 14,
that they can't do everything.
That sometimes,
you try, and you try, and you try,
but it's just not enough.
That sometimes,
you just can't do it.
Sometimes,
you're just not smart enough.
Sometimes,
you're just not quick enough.
Sometimes,
you just can't live up
to the expectations
that have been given to you
since you were born.

I'm staring this new year off with an old friend. It feels like old times.
-My unwelcomed sadness

My longing for a different setting outside the window I wake up to quite obviously told me that I was ready to get out of here. Out of this house and out of this town.
    I wake up next to leaveless trees and an empty field. I long to look out onto other houses and a mailbox. And while this may seem ordinary and mundane to you, it means everything to me. I've grown tired of the solitude this house gives me. I used to be grateful for the space it provided, but I've realized I was only trapped inside a larger prison cell.
    And you can laugh all you want and tell me everyone feels this way, but my dreams are filled with neighborhoods and parks I can walk to in places far away from here. I fantasize about the day I will hold a one-way plane ticket and boxes full of my things because if you were to ask my what I hate about this place, my answer would gladly roll off my tongue, but if you were to ask me what I like about it, you'd have to give me a few days.
    And don't get me wrong, I've made some good friends and great memories here, but I have to get out.

I've heard a liftetime of
"I shouldn't have told you that" 's
And
"I thought you already knew" 's
And of course,
Once I start listening, I can't stop.
My curiousity takes over.
And I guess I would've found out eventually.
It would have hurt either way.
But this only diminishes my trust in everyone.
Knowing that the most seemingly perfect things,
are often the most broken.

You can't help but run your fingers over the pages you've touched before.
Words and pictures that don't mean the same thing when you first placed them on the paper. You marvel at how you're always so invested in the now that you can't remember where your head was at back then. And even though you always say that everyday feels the same, you are so different from who you were then. You were aching, you were happy, you were nostalgic, you were angry, you were anything but what you are now. You can't remember writing those words but you remember the feeling. And you couldn't put into words how you've changed but you can feel it. You look at the words you wrote down and you feel them, again. It's different this time, you are reacting to them instead of feeling them. It's so odd, isn't it? The words you once wrote, the paintings you once made, are no longer you. They are a part of who you were, and even if you feel the same as you did then, they are a part of the then. As soon as you put it down on the table, as soon as you walk away from it, it is a part of the then. And now, now you have either reinforced those feelings, or you have changed. Either way, things have happened. Things kept moving, even though you never think about that. We think to the future but do you really ever think about how things just keep going? Things, life, tragedy, miracles, they all keep coming at you like a car racing towards you as you sit in the middle of the highway. It doesn't stop, it doesn't slow, it doesn't speed up. The driver's foot is steady. You never think your mind is going to change and grow as much as it does but it happens everyday, right under your nose. But for now you are here again. In the same spot you once were, holding in your hands a paper that was once blank with an idea in your head. Today you create more. Tomorrow it will be a part of the then. And tomorrow you will do the same and the day after that it will be a part of the then. And in time, just when the meaning of the words or the drawing or the music has slipped your mind for good, you find it again and you listen and you feel the paper you held a long time ago and you feel who you once were. And you'll turn off the music, and you'll put the paper back down, you'll close your eyes, and you'll forget. And this will become your next then.

And one day
When I'm lying next to you
In the bed where you will take your last breath
And your eyes are glazed with memories
I will remember today
I will remember the first day we met
And the first words you said to me
I will remember it all.
I'll watch you as you remember, too.
And one day
When I'm lying in the bed where I will take my last breath
I will remember this, too.

There are no monsters hiding in your bones.
There are no ghosts in the closets of your mind.
There are no creatures crawling through you.
You can say it all you want,
that there is a darkness living inside you,
and that's why you feel the way you do,
but it isn't true.
You are human,
and yes,
you are flawed,
but there is no evil in you.
You are a beautiful person.
You are a kind person.
And the chemicals in your brain may be imbalanced,
but there are no monsters hiding in your bones.
There are no ghosts in the closets of your mind.
There are no creatures crawling through you.
You feel sad,
but you are not the sadness.