I’m in the never-was and could not be,
I’m in a daydream,
And i’d like to leave reality
Behind
Just for a moment
So kiss me and hug me and tell me you love me
And we’ll pretend we care about each other
And we aren’t just in this because we want to hurt ourselves,
That we aren’t just in this because we want someone else to confirm that no one else cares about us.
Let’s just pretend a moment more,
okay?

I am homesick for a time and place where you said you loved me and you meant it.
I am homesick for a place where i am happy.
I am homesick for a time that never did exist, and I have become more storybook and pseudo- nostalgia than human being.

Today I woke up early and I thought it was important! I thought today would be a day for me to do things that were worth it. I woke up early and I tried hard. I walked around and I asked people questions. I tried to ask questions that were important. I looked at people into their eyes and I tried to actually be present. I ate food and I saw things. It's hard for me to wake up sometimes, actually all the times. I never really want to wake up. I try hard and I work hard but I always forget to ask people questions. I'm not always present. When people are around me and my eyes are open I don't look into their eyes. I don't often think about food and I think eating is inconvenient. I guess I thought today I'd pretend all those things were important. So I woke up early today, I woke up early can you believe it? I woke up early because today waking up was important! I walked around and I asked people questions! I looked at them in their eyes and only saw my reflection. I wished I hadn't woken up early when they walked right past me and didn't answer my questions. I tried eating and pretending that it was convenient, that eating was important. The food tasted like the lie I knew it was; with each bite I felt like I was more a fraud, an actor, an imposter. As if I was someone who could believe I was important. As if I was someone who woke up early and looked at people in the eyes and asked them questions. As if I was someone who felt like a time for food was convenient. Maybe I'm a liar, maybe I'm something more. Maybe people didn't see the truth in my eyes when I met them at their core. Maybe I didn't need to wake up early to have time to focus my gaze. Maybe I don't need to ask people questions to make them see that I'm awake. Maybe none of these things are needed to validate that I'm important. Maybe I'm the one that needs to realize I'm worth it.

You will survive this.
You might be in a bad place right now.
It might feel like the feeling will never go away,
like its too overwhelming to imagine ever leaving.
But this too will pass.
you can survive this.
Someday, maybe years from now, maybe months maybe weeks maybe even days from now,
You will look back and think to yourself:
Hey. I'm still alive.
and you will be happy about that.
Even if the pain doesn't stop,
it will eventually ease, and you will be happy.
The difference between how far you've come and surviving this is just one more step. And one more step and another until you look back to where you stand right now and wave, because there is a world where you have already survived this.
Although it seems now like walking across the ocean,
On the other shore of this calamity,
You are waving to yourself, saying
Hey
You're still alive
You got this.

I don’t sleep anymore.
I lie in bed and my mind immediately drifts to the news.
People killing each other for no reason. Fires being started. Virus deaths climbing ever higher.
And who wants to think about that?
So i’m not sleeping anymore.
Instead i’m frantically googling-
How to survive a civil war.
How to survive a nuclear bomb.
How to survive a shooting.
How to survive living in a time where I constantly have to think about surviving.

My life- everything i have done- is becoming debris.
Fine, then.
I will sing in the wreckage

The child is going to the woods, having not told a living soul, to spend a night alone, and find monsters and magic, or at least something wondrous.
They lie down in a blanket of vines and wait for a sound.
Hours pass.
The child has closed eyes and is almost asleep when they hear a noise.
It is a noise they have never heard before.
They should open their eyes- or should they?
If they open their eyes, perhaps there will be a monster. They will be sure of it, and the creature will be known.
Or perhaps they will find some great and brutal creature that will devour them.
That option might be better, truth told.
Or, finally.There are no fairies, no ghosts, no bogeymen.
It must be a deer, only a deer.
And if they open their eyes to find that, they will be crushed.
This is the perfect time to leave, run out into the deepest parts of the forest, where one might die, but one might also live there, in the unknown parts of the wood with creatures fanged and strange, in a land where there may or may not be magic.
The child is too scared.
So the child waits the rest of the night, eyes closed, shivering: and returns home to live their life in a land full of only ordinary wonders.