She sat. And she waited.
The crowds were about to roar themselves into existence within the thin blue air next to her, but that did not cause her to fear.

show her all my words.
complain that i've really outdone myself this time, that i've officially broken you into a thousand pieces.
but you know that it isn't me and that as much as the past attributed to so much of the anxiety i feel on a daily basis in so many parts of my life that i feel defective and sometimes want to die because of, i bear you and no one else no ill will.
but i don't doubt that by now all my words and all my truth have been passed on to her screen, and that you feel i'm out to get you.
i'm doing what i should've done a long time ago, protecting myself and my happiness.
i won't let you, unable to let go of something that happened in the past and ended for good reason, tear me up over something that any unselfish person would let go of for the sake of the sanity of those others involved.
i won't let my anxiety and insecurities, half of which are caused by you, ruin my relationship.
i won't let this rule my life.
and you shouldn't either. it isn't healthy. and i'm nice enough to not feel the need to constantly be depressed and upset and blame you or myself about what happened. because i'm actively trying to fix things and move on in as healthy a way as i can.
so tell her, show her all my words if that will console your conscience. i don't care. i lost her because of you anyways, but unlike you, we ended on good, civil, and honestly heartwarming terms, and i still check in on her anonymously to make sure shes doing okay. because i know she's not toxic.
i had just hoped at this point you would care enough about you and your acquiantances to make your problems just that; yours, and yours alone.
but show her, if it brings you comfort.
and while you're at it, tell her i say hi, and good luck in college. i know she'll be massively successful, and i believe in her every step of her journey.
and the same goes to you.
just fix yourself.

I never lied as a kid.
I was the one everyone knew would take little to no disciplining, the one who was born mature.
How I let myself go, how I let myself change to accomodate someone in a negative way, I will never know.
And perhaps I'll never forgive myself.
I could never hate any of the people who illicited bad experiences in my life, simply because they've made me into a stronger person.
But complaining that I never did enough, that I've permeated your life in a negative way when we don't even talk, it makes no sense.
I'm not actively seeking to hurt anyone. I don't even talk to you anymore.
The difference is, I'm not a child anymore like I was when I knew you.
I don't care anymore.
People who can't get over the past, those who hold onto it and complain about it without actually trying to fix it, those are the people I will never give the time of day.
How could someone unwilling to make themself better for someone else's sake and for their own sake be appealing to speak to? To laugh with? To cry with?
They drag people down.
And I finally care about myself enough to root out the ones who need work. And I don't feel guilty.
I'm growing self esteem.
And the lies have expired.
For good.

Blaming someone for addictions doesn't just do nothing, have no effect.
I have always disdained the idea of cigarettes, drugs, and lies. Always. I will never know how you lowered my standards forcibly enough to tell me it was my fault for not helping to get you off them and when I tried that it was my fault for making you anxious.
Anyone could have helped you. You could have helped you.
But you leaned solely on me and bit me when I tried to give you what you needed.
My mom always told me cigarettes were bad, that they stunted your lifespan, that drugs got you into legal trouble, and lies lost you those closest to you.
How did I somehow acquit you of all three of those charges...and blame myself when you refused to face it, how did I poison myself into thinking your choices were my fault?
My roommate likened it to her ****** abuse she faced when she was younger. She blamed herself for not saying no enough. I feel like I didn't tell you emphatically enough, but every time I told you it was bad that you were doing it again, immediately I was the villain and you cajoled me into apologizing by saying that it made you too anxious to think about or try to resolve.
But that you would be better.
You never were.
Being in college, that holy trinity of sorts is what stems all my fears. Cigarettes, drugs, and lies run my anxiety, and I hate myself for it. I hate myself for letting you make me think it was my fault you couldn't fix yourself.
The difference between us is, I'm going to fix the impression you had on me.
But it seems you'll never fix the hole those three left in you.
If you had, perhaps the past would be different.

I wanted to visit the Alamo.
I wanted to see the cracked down walls, I wanted to walk where they had walked.
Christmas still vaguely lingered in the air, and they said they would take me there since they hadn't been and history is such a large portion of my interests.
I wanted to visit the Alamo.
I made excuses to not go. "I'm sick" or "I was going to hang out with my sister" or "You live here now, I'll go with you next visit". Somehow those tided them over until my plane ride back home.
I wanted to visit the Alamo.
They knew I had great plans of pictures and acquisition of knowledge and that this trip would only add to those if we had just gotten in the car and driven the hour to go, but I was too scared.
I wanted to visit the Alamo.
But you were too close. And you scared me away.

I've changed, I've grown.
I've come to realize that words in and of themselves do not, in fact, mean what the dictionary pleads. Oh no, for those of us brave enough to venture out and discover our true selves on our own, it is easy enough to divine the truth of the situation.
Promises, yes, those; as a child they meant so much. I promised I wouldn't walk on the stone bridge by myself because I knew my mother wouldn't want me getting hurt, and I promised never to be there after dark. But I've grown. I've changed. I've made a conscious effort to become mature in ways other children I played with never cared for, because it took work and wanting to mature instead of a foolish desire to ignorantly play for the rest of their days.
So I can now walk to the bridge, and after dark too. I can enjoy the moon drifting over the river water, and I can appreciate the lull of the quiet night air. I promised to be good and not go or do what my word meant I couldn't.
I'm older now. Situations have changed. I'm strong enough to swim without my father's hands, and tall enough to stand in the water on my own.
Why would a mother hold her daughter to a promise made in a situation that no longer holds true? To do so is to be confining and cause stress and pain.
A daughter should be able to swim if she wants to.
If not allowed, how will she ever learn to fly?

sometimes I wonder why i bother because sometimes it's so easy to just hold it all in, you know, like a tidal wave that pulls back so far that the power it finally unleashes is more pent up and crazy, but that's the thing see i don't want to unleash i don't want to destroy i want to create i want to feel i want to be i want to hold in my hands the way to keep myself whole my identity my very being that i keep trying so hard to find in other people and realizing i have to make myself but it just pulls me down when i know who i am finally and realize that i want to give part of that away but i cant i cant i just want to slice off a piece for you to keep safe and away from my impulses and fears but somehow that's too hard because if you saw how repulsive the real me really is i think you'd honestly run and hide and i don't know if i could take that not here not now and maybe not even ever just simply because you're too far in now you're too huge a part of my life to just up and leave and since the decision lies in my hands i'm so torn because i want you and i want you to stay but inside is all the tearing which i thought had been let go you said you had let me go like i had let you go it wasn't a matter of being able to but rather of giving the other person the leave to begin again, to not be selfish and let them start over and she took it from me and i don't know how to keep going because i'm still ******* in the past and trying to lasso the future and how does the correspondence even work when i just want to live but can't because i see it every day and think of that every night and the two just don't mix like oil and water they pool away from each other and that's frankly the only reason that i can't claim right now that i am or ever will be whole.