Fierce is god impenitrable
glad glad glad there is a
Fire up the street called Heaven
There is

A woman wearing only one shoe who is taking
an exhaustive drag of her smoke in the
early morning where birds are
still heard in
                                    !!!!!!cities

A hymnal a
heralded nest of savory berries A quartzstone is trapped in time a myth is made more ridiculous when proven real

Continents wither where the flies glue their

regal canvases on downtrodden earth (missing Pangea)

Or smiles everlasting smiles meanwhile
(Blonde tongues wearing fashioned wigs)
in constant state of beguilement

The Neanderthalic stones will be unforgiving to the REVEREND who has collapsed through his song the song of lead pipedream fantasies of sexless dogma YEAH monkhood yeah Ghat burning holes in twilit schools of thought or no thought at all


I can

hear the collective Faerie outcry that silence has presented itself HEAvier to their wicked careless bodies ok I am innocent of love I love your innocent love I am careless(of their wicked careless bodies)
ResemblingA swans actual duty to die
a swan lies a swan lay
like an even more beautiful swan
on even more beautiful swanny grass
To die by swanlightSUN and MOON white like the swan where we soon listen closely to the swansong a celestialLOVELY
rhythm of gilded forest (((((orchestrals
The swan leaves us in happiness of bright groggy light
                         O (of which in chaos of day I am again innocent)


     The Reverend's desperate gaspings into a  micro -phone for a macro - cosmic prayer idol o idol where is your capability for worship idol o where is my chinstrap o idol where is ****** youth or the romanticized eternal SUMMERS I sing
     O bible O cloudland O where is your telephone operator is they deceased by their own fragrant holines? The church
     Watches the Reverend neverend his television routine of clamoring death odes
     Watches his senility come like an implorical shadow outline watches a demon lick its dreamless lips beyond the periphery of godless dreams
     Watches
     Reverend lose his sight in anInstant
     HeWAILSheWAILSandWAILS can you hear it Thomas De Quincey can you hear the sandbeaches ringing more clearly than the ChurchBells or the ****** Pagoda for torture /

his soul is to sleep in the (mossy)mountain the fire of the (forever)street called HEAVEN the mountain column supporting the sky(swan)gate of heavenHeaven!welcome

   to:

I want to be just like Pan,
dance wildly in the woods,
hang with nymphs,
make love
& have fun.

She is dressed like an unmarked bottle of tequila
Smuggled and homemade

There's some dirt on your cheek
Leave it there
Out here looks good on you

There is the crunch and scrape
of dirt in the threading
little pebbles against my teeth

I spit them out onto a smooth portion of cement
Pray that in the blurr
I can read divinity
in the way the dirt falls

Another swig and I am heart heavy
Like scrap metal
and old houses
like fat sacks of glowing mercy

She smiles like a pipedream
of twisted shining copper

She speaks in head spin
This is what it feels like when god talks to you
without killing you

She says
You are not in the business of
feeling sorry for yourself

Name the year

This is the year of the shedding of weight
The year of the cutting in half
The year of shaking the dust
From the fragile places
Wiping the dirt from the threading
even if you have to use your own mouth
so you can finally seal yourself
without worrying if it will hurt this time

The year of hotmess
And young love
The year of leaving
This is the year
Not where everything is lost
But a new lightness is gained
In the way you can walk away

So pull your heart out from the rubble
of the past

This is the year of being charming
The year of fist fights and no regrets
The year where you finally understand
what it means to be honest

This is the year of shaking the dust

A broken shell, a living hell, and all I'm left with now is my regret.

Better days ahead were a pipedream after our relationship crumbled. Countless arguments. Disagreements. Every day! For my life, I can't believe we stayed together as long as we did. God knows I didn't want her to leave me. How much longer must I wrestle with these painful memories?

I just feel regret, unspoken, I just feel the pain; since she left, my life has been a broken shell, a living hell — I can't believe I let her go; it was foolish pride before the fall the day she left when I lost all — I should have held her closer, I should have made her see the feelings I have for her, what she means to me; I didn't say I love her or beg her to stay, instead, I stood in silence and watched her walk away, and all I'm left with now is my regret.

Justification is an exercise in futility. Knowing what I could have and should have done leaves an inextricable switchblade in my soul. Love's lessons learned too late — love's loss too great.

Misting eyes beseech as memories replay in my head, but they're too painful, and I feel dead. No joy to be found. Oh well, my self-imposed hell. Painful memories open like an oubliette under my feet, plunging me lost and languishing in isolation's labyrinth. Questions left unanswered, decaying in the debris fields of "what if.”

Reflection can be a catharsis for the soul, but it can also rip a hole in it, and soon reality roars from guilt's bottomless pit to devour all hope. Sometimes despair is mitigated by occasional reminders of us. Thoughts lingering on happier times, blessed moments mine to treasure. Until the damnable loop of regret dominates to decimate any respite of joy. Vanishing expectations. Weeping willow's silent wail. Xerox memories fade with time.

Years have passed, and my thoughts continue to haunt me over what we could have had. Zero-sum game — all I'm left with now is my regret.




Mark Toney ©️ 2023

*       *       *

April 22, 2023

I hope you found the above fictional prose poem interesting. I wrote it in response to a writing challenge I heard about.  Write a 26-sentence short story (or prose poem). Each sentence must begin with the alphabet's sequential letters starting with A through Z. One sentence must be 100 words long, and another sentence only one word. Would you like to try it?

I remember so much that I wish I could forget.  

This is a poem about Psalm 23 choked out through tears.  
This is a poem about astro vans and
                                      tractor lawn mowers and
                                      driveway car washes and
                                      small garden spaces and
                                      digger wasps and
                                      three wolves and a moon.  

This is about the Backstreet Boys and
                              Def Leppard and
                              Kenny Chesney.  
“Dreams” by The Cranberries.

About waterparks and
            swim lessons and
            the smell of chlorine.  
Fresh cut grass.  Bonfire smoke permeating through the house.  

Grey diamond tiles on white linoleum.  
                                                                Hands clenched down on washcloths.

Muddled.  It’s all so muddled.  Stuck beneath
                                                           brain­ matter and cerebrospinal fluid and
                                                              down, down, down beneath the lake.  
How can I dig it out while also digging it down deeper?  
I want to forget it all.  No memory, no pain, no ******* problem.  

Goldfish life: a pipedream.

thousands of lost souls screaming at the dark
that lives inside their minds
and wishing someone could draw them out
of their lonely heads and this broken time

even the simplest action becomes an ordeal
a herculean task to those who are
living perpetually in fear of all
the things they see and everything they are

if you have never lost your senses
to sheer paralysis over food, or going out
you cannot understand how terrifying
life can be, or how it drags so many down

we live in the depths, an exclusive hades
this circle of hell exists on earth
heaven and stars become a rich pipedream
we lose all idea of love and elusive self worth

an illness so isolated, this disease
god I wish something was wrong with my body
that could show what makes me so insane
instead of a perfectionist need to be lovely

an innate detachment from others
the people who know how to exist
in happiness, who dream of real things
who when they die will truly be missed

I am not here, not real, I wish I was
not a shadow girl, the ghost at the bar
lost in a lonely heart and finding salvation
wielding a blade and creating ugly scars

making pain replace love and true feeling
so that everything translates to fat
and I can't possibly enjoy anything
and open up, I'll never be like that

withdrawal and dissolution reigns until
this girl gets help, gets locked up
gets shown all the ways in which she is sick
god, I wish I had never grown up

*© Tara India.

I guess one of these days I am going to thank you.
I am not gonna hurt as much as I do right now,
Not gonna want to just give up on people completely.
I won’t sit hear and wish you were here,
I won’t feel so alone without you here.
One day, I am not going to worry about you dying.
Or laying somewhere hurt, losing control.
One of these days, I may not even think about you at all.
There will come a time when the pain won’t be so fresh.
Although I feel that I am never gonna feel secure.
It is not just you and it is not just your fault.
That I feel so repulsive, undesirable only a mere annoyance.
Because for once I just wanted to be beautiful enough,
Smart enough, fun enough.
For once I just wanted to be enough.
If only the damage done before you didn’t destroy me.
Didn’t just leave me here too broken for anyone to handle.  
For now I just don’t think I will ever be good enough,
sane enough, desirable enough, attractive enough, clean enough.
For now I assume I will never be happy enough.
It is funny how only a day or two ago,
we sat in a room with friends.
They said countless times how they wish they had a girlfriend like me.
Isn’t it funny, that you have me and I am the absolute last thing you want.

One day soon I am gonna start moving on,
Someone else will make me smile.
Someone else will make me giggle when they aren’t there,
Just like you did.
One day soon maybe I will understand
Why you hit on every one of my friends in a room,
Why you flirt with every girl you see.
Except for me of course,
I am hoping that after you are gone,
So will the way you can make me feel invisible
In a room, watching you try to be with anyone but me.
Maybe one day I will be able to feel like I am the only one.
The only one that someone wants,
The way I had started to feel about you.
Maybe one day I am gonna be the first thing that you see when in a room.
Maybe one day you will want me back,
You will regret what you said,
Or you will regret what you did.
Or what you didn’t do .

In time, I will move on and I will wish you away.
As hard as I wish you were here trying for me now.

One day I will be okay, or I won’t be
One day you will be okay, or you won’t be.
Maybe tomorrow you will sober up and you will apologize.
You will come here and you will actually try.
maybe I am just holding onto a pipedream,
but don’t worry though I am letting you go.
And the only thing that would change the ending where we part ways is you.
I know that this is far fetched and I am in a fairy tale land.
Right now though, just to not have my self esteem crumble
and to not have my heart break, and to not wish myself into someone else.
I will hold on the to the fairy tale.
And I will hold onto the knowledge that one day,
you will just be a memory.

There's a saying that goes like a pipedream
Solitary Scream in your mouth
In your bedroom without a doubt
You're convulsing conversations
Time's up
How about your hold on my hand?
How about I give up my will to you always
And then we can hold each others' cheek
Your hair is so nice to my finger gaps
Pray deeply
I don't know much about out loud
But it's the feeling that's real anyhow
How about you go this way
How about we stay the same
The room is closing as the door opens
And nothing has changed
We're still living in a really big cage
I scream as half my body is out the window
And music is playing out the stereo
How about you hold me so I don't fall
How about you accept this ride I'm offering you
I'm learning how to bike
And you're beside me
Suddenly it's reckless nature taking over
The legs are kicking
Pedal down, pedal down
The stationary bike
Taught me better than you did
But nothing taught me a better lesson than you did
The bike is washed up
Rusty, dusty, crusty
And still my heart won't give out
Help yourself until then

He holds a piece of glass to leak his white sky
He roams around lost in a pipedream, eyes blind
He perceives a false distortion of time
He is lost inside
He falls behind with dreams he can't find
He enables a ghost to host his mind
He haunts me to believe our thoughts are aligned
He clouds his wounds with a flower
He pretends he's not sinking in his sanity every hour
He said We'll all float on okay
He sang Don't you worry, we'll all float on

I remember us walking, feeling colors in our heads
I remember injecting your brain with vibrations unheard
I remember your eyes radiating before you told me you felt something
I remember them telling me my psyche was cracked
I remember the highway glare, halfway there
I remember my mother telling me, "One must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star."
I remember she added: "Love is blind, friendship closes its eyes."
I wish I didn't invest so much time
I wish i glimpsed his fathoms before I thought him to shine
I wish someone gave me a sign

"never let it die"
never let what die, exactly?
the passion?
i love arranging words
but even i have to admit
that eventually the day will come
when i can't find a new way for the words to sit
and i can't know if that day will come
before the day my curséd hands-
the ones that feel like pianist's when floating across a keyboard
while the owner watches words dance on the page
-become gnarled with age
perpetually pained and praying for the end
my life's greatest joy in the beginning
once my best friend
soon becomes my wayward true love
gone on the wings of a dove
leaving me with nothing to do
but stare hard with tired eyes at a bingo card

or is it the wonder?
wonder is life's greatest blunder
because as long as knowledge knows what's best
wonder will wind up dying like the rest
surely it is no contest
when a child's tooth transfigures into a 50 cent piece
just like magic
except for the part where little timmy
one eye peeled open
sees dad sneaking away in the night
trying so hard not to make a sound
or the year sally slaved over cookies for santa
taking care to leave a carrot for rudolph
only to realize that for some strange reason
santa's signature bore striking resemblance
to mom's when the pen in her hand does a dance

is it the motivation?
motivation is sometimes hard
when people are telling me that this isn't my calling card
all their tight-lipped smiles of pity
whenever i'm asked, "what else do you want to do?"
to be perfectly honest, it feels kind of ******
it's a knife in my heart, a stab in my back
in my darkest hour i feel my resolve crack
and there goes the backbone we all know i lack

or maybe it means me
or bigger than me, the fragility of life
the very thing that causes so many strife
but i know it is merely a pipedream
eventually my poor eyes will lose their gleam
you might say,
"hey now holly
it's not so bad
you could live on through your words
come on, they're more than just a fad
wouldn't that be rad?
now, there's no need to be sad!"
i mean, sure, but it isn't me who's got longevity
it's those words i wrote just to get some levity
what's so special about me
compared to all those other dead white dudes?
tell me one thing about shakespeare the man
and then tell me about your favorite play he penned
then we'll measure which conversation's longer
and that's the answer
regarding whether me or my words are stronger

"never let it die"
now that one's a crapshoot
but trust me, i'll be ****** if i don't go down trying
"ms. mcfarlane, you're dying-"
-**** straight, kid, we're all dying
but listen here, sonny
i'll be a monkey's uncle if you think
i'm going before you do, just another fink
nah, i'm going down screaming and fighting
i don't really care if they drag me down or up
just pour a little more champagne in my cup
this whole life thing? it's mostly dumb luck

"never let it die"-
now that's impossible, but
water it, nurture it, let it grow
not having the ambition, though
that's your real foe
its temporary nature is the artistry
that fosters the artist in me
so sit back, relax, and enjoy the ride
because everything in life happens in due time

A soliloquy of disharmony from the maimed-unnamed soldier foretells so well
that the rhapsodic roar of war is a chorus of the purist gore from the chaotic choir of hell.
This is for You who betray the universal truth
of love,
death
and youth.
How dare you preach of ceaseless peace when the peace you reach for
Is beseeched by deceased chess pieces upon the beach floor.
Naive but brave boyish pawns with their heads and their knees in the sand,
who faithfully faced the hellfire that razed their grandiose last stand
into the scorched nightmare-land for your abyss-seducing plan.
Not even the darkest Devil in hell could quell the ****** surging swell.
They’re the lost stanzas of a forgotten symphony
conducted within the cacophony of a coffins divinity,
the pawn pieces on a puppet string whose grip they can’t untwine
from the very least among us;
the desirous tyrants with their puppet-master minds.
If their dark fantasies should not cease to feast upon the nature of the beast,
better to betray the bark of false amity lest the hex of vanity refuses to decay,
as the trivialised archetype of destruction is the civilised man of modern day
who is sleeping on his sanity with eyes of pride brightly wide awake.
With pipedreams of eternal peace at the feet of our blood-stained door,
visioning winning with a checkmate or a dead queen on the floor.
Only when the once wilting wild-flowers grow free through the cracks in the board,
will we see through the eye of the beholder the first morn of the freely dreamed dawn.
And in fairness to the youth, whom uncouthly search for truth,
with their own dreams that gleam of drinking water from fresh streams,
sleeping in a meadow of bliss beneath the bereaved stars.
Their time has finally come to strike in the nail of change,
to see the coffin lowered with the ageing ancient ways,
but we can’t have faith in change lest its paved the saviours way

I get it. Life *****. No, really it does. But... (Come on we all like to see the but(t)s)
It ***** for us ALL.
We have a near constant threat of war/harm no matter where you live.
We have world leaders that don't seem to listen to their full populace but serve their own agenda and the agenda of those who helped keep them in power.
We have inequality of ***, gender, religion, etc etc
Basically if there's a way to make someone see someone else as the dreaded "other" there's strife and discord.
We have humanity waking up to the fact that our own minds have evolved the very same traits that make us feel crazy. Things like ADHD were originally a survival trait for our early ancestors but now drive us mad as we try to learn and pay attention to those we care about. (Yes, I know that was simplistic but it illustrates my point about mental stuff which is NOT the point of this writing so don't argue that with me here please)
We could talk about ways to fix that.
Seriously I love discussions on how to advance humanity in just about ANY regard. Mental health, social growth and development, world politics, etc.
But here... (Yes, I'm finally getting to the point)
Here... I want to talk about personal responsibility.
We have a LOT of **** we can't control. Life is a random chance and fateful hodgepodge of events.
You could be sitting on your couch and be struck by a meteor and killed. You could walk out your door and see someone that changes your world just out walking their dog.
Chance and fate both have a hand on the wheel no matter what you believe. Call them what you will but it is true.
The ONLY thing you CAN control EVERY time is YOUR actions.
Mental health and outside factors and a million other things may limit your actions and options.
BUT!!
YOU ARE STILL RESPONSIBLE FOR YOUR ACTIONS.
YES, this includes the words you speak.
YES, this includes the behaviors you do without conscious thought.
YES, this includes each and every action you do small and large.
And you know what... That royally ***** sometimes.
It is so much easier to blame the "other", blame this or that factor. Even the action of NOT taking an action IS an action of which you have responsibility for making.
We all do it. No, seriously... We do.
I do it a LOT lately because I have kids that constantly seem to know just when to do something to derail everything. But that is no excuse. I KNOW what they're like so I SHOULD be planning on them derailing my plans. That's just one tiny example.
I have mental and emotional problems myself. I have partners and friends who do also. I have been hit by random chance and by fate.
Bottom line is that my life is a result of MY choices. Each and every action that I do MAY be in response to actions and factors outside of myself. But I am still responsible for them all. My partners and friends know (at least I hope they do) that I do my best to support and care for them. It may come as natural as breathing to hug them when they're not feeling well or to get upset when it feels like I'm being hurt.
The responsibility for those actions still fall on me. Maybe they don't want hugged because they're overwhelmed and over touched. Maybe they don't know that I've been trying to do something and they didn't recognize my efforts adequately in my opinion for whatever reason.
This is not meaning that they and any "others" are removed of the responsibility for how their actions effect me.
This is not meaning that you should spend all your time thinking and not acting because of fear of the consequences of your actions.
This is not meaning that because someone has what they feel is a valid excuse for their actions that you aren't allowed to be hurt by their actions.
This is NOT meant for reinforcing anyone's (even mine) feelings of everything being their fault.
This IS for reminding myself that while I may not see it all the time... My actions DO have consequences. We're always told things like "this small act of kindness changed the world because it insert famous story here_". I need reminded of THAT.
One of my favorite fictional characters said it best:

“I’m not trying to win. I’m not doing this because I want to beat someone, because I hate someone, or because I want to blame someone. It’s not because it’s fun. God knows it’s not because it’s easy. It’s not even because it works because it hardly ever does. I do what I do because it’s right! Because it’s decent! And above all, it’s kind! It’s just that… Just kind." ... "Hey, you know, maybe there’s no point to any of this at all. But it’s the best I can do. So I’m going to do it. And I’m going to stand here doing it until it kills me." ... "Who I am is where I stand. Where I stand is where I fall.” — The Doctor

I probably can't change the world. I probably can't make a difference that will get me in the history people remember.
But I CAN take control my actions and always strive to be better than I was the day before. I can be kind. I can be a good partner and friend. I can be a good father. I can be a good role model. I CAN make a difference to someone every day. Even if it is nothing more than letting someone cut in in traffic and not honk at them in frustration. Even if it is making a kid smile and calm down to help their parent out in a store. Even if it is helping someone with a couple extra bucks when they're short. Even if it not something that will be remembered 5 minutes after it happened. That doesn't matter. What matters is me controlling my actions. What matters is me reflecting kindness to the world. I may only be one person out of billions.
But maybe it just takes one person, one act, one example to start making a difference for someone else. May be just a pipedream. May be just a fantasy. May be just a way to battle feeling insignificant in this great big world.
But hey... Life *****. I have low days. Sometimes I need a reminder of why I keep trying and putting in the effort even when I struggle. I may not be able to do more than take a tiny nearly insignificant step forward each day... But by thunder that's still moving forward.

Utopia
A fool's future
The day we ask for one
Becomes the day of our downfall

i get lost on purpose
    drive into the mountains like
    maybe i’m waiting for a cliff

   like maybe route 44 will go off the grid
    unmap itself
from my neurons and from google both

i brake disgusted
    reminded of the guy who took the hairpin too fast
    and didn’t even make a dent in the ridge
reminded how it looms so large with every rev
    till all i see is rock
   , road
   , and impossibly the flightiest glimpse of

   vanishing point

so distant from the guy who escaped the sky

i pull over next to smoking trucks and their smoking drivers
silhouetted against a valley so vast it may as well be nothing
    a pipedream projected somewhere
    beyond
     some etching from the silurian period
    that i won’t understand (not even when i’m older)

i’m sorry i’m late

i get lost on purpose
    but i still repeat myself:
the second the county signs change color
    i’m shivering at the lookout
    i'm swinging around and glancing nervously at the sun
i'm slamming my brakes at the hairpin
    neither earth nor air nor new
   just home.

sorry i’m late
but i’m here.
    i parked at the end of the driveway
   like always.

Soaked and wet through again
and
cardboard's no defence when
there's rain again,
wish I was in Spain again
but that's just a pipedream.

It's just another cold old story
and we've heard it before
in the shop door way
with no way
to get out.

The Sun must be somewhere
at the end of the rainbow?
or
where the night goes in
slow mo'
and someone must
know.

in the meantime
it's raining
I'm soaking
no joking
this isn't funny.

Rail, tracks, interrupted delight.
Dawn, a constant drunk, waving to move modernism.
Purple slumber nights, the mind strokes windows, head in rags.
Stumbled sky, hanging and occupying figures that push plague.
Condensation outside hugged in damaged and breathless clots.
Close scenes depressing taste, wake Bonaparte, incandescent seagulls are screaming as they fly, scattered, singing dreams.
Interrupting the closing of yesterday, hoping soul-bruise rates sit low tonight.
Danger plays, paths, fields, bedsheets, house.
Strange death amusements meet tender eyelids.
Numbing the pipedream special, the destination freshly yellow and late,
Colour pretty and clear.

You’re 17 years old and things are probably feeling a bit overwhelming. Surprise: that feeling kind of never goes away. It’s okay though, because you’re going to get a hell of a lot better at understanding the swirling dervish of thoughts, feelings, and experiences you’ll navigate as you get older.

It’s a bit weird talking to you, but I know how lost you feel. The good news is you have so many amazing things coming up. You’ll go to university, you’ll graduate (even though it is an utter slog, completely devastating and in many ways you’ll be convinced it wasn’t worth the tears – it was). You’ll land an internship and quickly learn that you’re in a generational sweet spot which offers you job insights your superiors will never understand. You’ll continue being wordy, writing and publishing with various magazines. You’ll meet some excellent humans, some not so excellent, and you’ll have your heart broken (or break your own heart) a dozen times over. It’ll be worth it.

You’ll meet a man who gathers you up while your breakup is still raw, your trust frayed, and your nerve lost. He’ll offer patience, Star Wars and burritos to soothe the ache in your chest. He’ll listen, laugh, and console you. He’ll remind you that there are so many great things in the world and it’s only with time you’ll come to understand just how special those things are.

You’re so eager to be grown up, to be at that place where you’re not scared anymore. Not left behind or ahead of the curve, just exactly where you’re meant to be. But that’s the secret – you’ll never be anywhere but where you’re supposed to be. You have the power to change your course if that’s what you need. You have the power to own your space, your decisions, your relationships, and your knowledge. You were sold a misguided truth growing up that the best is yet to come. That’s nonsense, really. The best is already here. The best is knowing you can wake up each day and carve out the past that best serves you.

You’re going to grow up to be an ardent feminist and advocate for human rights. Which makes sense when you think about what a self-righteous little **** you can be, and why the debate club leader was so sad you wouldn’t join. Your eyes will be opened to the atrocities of the world, and what feels like a bigger crime: the complacency of the masses. You’ll be exhausted fighting for what’s right, what’s fair, what’s equitable. It will be thankless work a lot of the time, but you’ll do it because you have such defined standards. You’ll learn to build boundaries, to protect your energy, to identify the causes worth throwing your all at and, eventually you’ll be supported in learning how to slow down, how to say no, how to not stretch yourself so thin your transparency leaves you bare and vulnerable. A hard lesson that will need constant reaffirming, but such a vital one.

One day, you’ll wake up and be ready to trust in the process. To find peace in the now, not be chasing an undefined future perfect, not be ill at ease in your own skin, not be troubled by standing still and taking in the beauty of the now. Grounding your feet in the floor, stopping to take in the plants you’ve nurtured, the relationship you’ve grown in, the home you’ve cultivated, the friendships you’ve developed. You’ll start to see just how much time you’ve spent fretting over futures and possibilities and uncertainties you never had a hope in hell of controlling.

That’s it, really. Control over everything is a pipedream and despite the desperation clawing at you to be able to touch something tangible, something certain, something so real and unmovable and eternal, there’s just no way for you to find that outside yourself. You’re getting to grips with that realisation now, and it still makes you cry, howl at the unfairness and thrash against the suffocating limits of reality. But you’ll also realise just how futile that is, laugh through those tears and settle in to figure out what the real root of your discomfort is. You’ll see how tired you are, how hard you’ve been working to make yourself better, and how pointless that framing is. You’ll commit to stepping away from self-defeating narratives and driving compassion for yourself and the world. God knows the world can use more compassion.

You’ll even return to university, despite your tumultuous experience in undergrad. Maybe partly because of it. You can’t let anyone else have the last word, after all, and will stop at nothing to prove yourself capable. You’ll learn more during that PhD than you’ll learn in your previous 25 years because it’s not just about the thesis. It’s hardly about the thesis at all. It’s about personal growth and development, it’s about finding ways to forgive your past thoughts, feelings, and experiences, and set up the best chance at self-kindness for the future. You’ll ruminate on some painful topics, explore the murky waters of the human condition, and you’ll still come out of it hopeful. Because, as you’ll realise in your exploration of violence online, it’s all about vulnerability. And vulnerability is beautiful. Vulnerability is the space for creativity, for growth, for changing direction, for exploring and for shifting stagnant, broken systems into forces for real, tangible change. Not just in governmental infrastructure or on Twitter.com but in yourself, too.

It’s such a painful relearning, unlearning, learning process. It’s messy (which I suppose is lucky because you never do learn how to keep your bedroom floor tidy, nor do you get over your aversion to ironing). And in that mess is opportunity. You just need to remember that your life, your ideas, your path not looking like other people’s doesn’t mean it’s wrong or lesser or a bad fit. It fits because it’s yours. You will have so much going for you and you’ll not always see it, but luckily you have friends and a partner who will remind you whenever you need it. And you’ll keep writing. Horrible, angsty, teenager poetry that makes you cringe and keeps you satisfied in equal measure. You’ll expel the worst of your thoughts, the most painful of your feelings, in an anonymous journal and it’ll be so cathartic. You’ll keep using your words to map your journey because it’s the only way you know how to communicate. You’ll still fear being misunderstood, but the panic won’t clutch you in a vice grip the same. You’ll let go (some) of that belief that misperception is the worst you can suffer – you’ll recognise that being misunderstood, misinterpreted, misconstrued is part of the mess of communication. You’ll even revel in it and explore it in academic settings as well as personal writings. You’ll see it’s somewhat a universal experience to feel not listened to, not truly heard. And you’ll grow a chosen family of active listeners, of empathetic, charismatic, compassionate souls who hear you and engage with you in ways you could never have dreamed, matching your passion toe to toe and giving you space to monologue as you pick apart ideas and theories in real time, and you’ll feel so cherished and accomplished in their company because they want to share space and energy with you. You will nourish each other in ways you can’t begin to put into words, it’s visceral and ethereal and intangible. It’s magic.

Time is a funny old thing. It’s intimately wrapped up in every experience – the past, the present, the future. The immediate experience of a thing, the aftermath, the impacts we can’t possibly predict but will undoubtedly live through down the line. Patience wasn’t really ever your strong suit, but you’ll learn to slow (if not stop) and take great pleasure in the minutia, wonder at that truly magnificent things in your life – the truly magnificent people that make your life all the richer.

Basically, you’ll be alright kiddo. Have faith in the process if you can’t find faith in yourself. The faith in yourself will come with time, a good few crying jags and a lot of positive reinforcement from very special people. It takes a village to raise a baby, so it makes sense it takes a community to grow a well-rounded soul like you.

You’re golden, Jane. You’ll see it one day.

Love, Jane