Around the corner the street light hums and flickers with the last breath of a dying star in the april night sky. I am afraid, really.

      Sometimes it takes all my courage just to do the simplest things--I avoid decisions; I avoid exposure; I avoid life, in all the pavement cracks and lined jean pockets it could hide in. I have tried to choose. I have tried to not choose. I have chosen and failed and pretended I had meant to not choose all along. Whatever; doesn't matter. What matters is that I'm still here, and I'm still me, after all these years of guessing games and truth-or-dares I'm back here, writing the exact same things, feeling somewhat identical to the way I had felt the first time round.

      I used to think people waste relationships, waste love. Overlooking the care and concern from their loved ones, insisting in their own stubborn mistakes. I used to think, if I were them, that I would hold onto every chance, every moment and never let go--that I would make things right. But now I realise I couldn't. They were not wasted, they did the best they could; and I--as much as I wanted--couldn't. I don't want to push people away, but sometimes it seems like all I can do. I don't want to put up, to pretend, and spew out for the millionth time things that I had already told half the world to the other half, things that I'm not sure I believed in in the first place.

      I dislike poetry--the affectation, the egotism--why be coy and confounding? Why not just say what you want to say? Why be untrue, when you are shattering the world and someone's existence with your lies.~

Life is unmistakable. I fear judgement; I fear change.

I fear losing myself, yet I am so afraid I'll never be close to anyone because I can't open up. I like silence, because there's a quality of perfection - of something beyond; the unreachable - attached to it. If I can't say something significant - something to the core of life, of thought, of feeling - I'll say nothing at all. I hate to be pointless.

People tell me, you look sad (I'm not aware of it). And why wouldn't I be, when there is so much that I want - plans, wishes, fulfillments - that I feel so lost. I don't know how to get what I want; I don't know what they are. All there is is an emptiness that spans my existence and expands, silently, reminding me of what I lack, of what I am not. The lines blur. Some days I almost like it this way - this is who I am supposed to be. This is different; this is alive. Some days I wish I could change, go far away, start afresh, live a new life. The dissolution between reality and that second, more comforting reality in my mind - what makes me sad is the latter is real, too.