i'd really like to jump off a bridge right about now and there happens to be one about a mile or two from me. and this is what i've been thinking about for the last couple weeks. It's easy for other people to tell me to be brave and keep my head up and tell me how strong i am when they don't have to live inside my brain.

i don't even know what scares me the most about doing it... i guess... being more of a disappointment than i already am.

the light

i don't want to be in the light because it only burns; it only illuminates the heaviness that lives beneath my eyes (from a lack of sleep but how do they expect me to sleep with all this fucking light shining on me).

it's so cold and empty and barren inside, under my paperskin, and the brightness beams beneath and fills me... but i can't keep what isn't mine and it hurts more to have something leak through me than never having it to begin with so, please, keep it away from me.

i know what it's like to live in trenches and i know we're all just breathing until the day we don't and we want to know... we have to know why... and i've come to realize that whatever it is (your why) will only ever be yours (and i am not yours even if you were mine) and you can't forcibly change or debate your way into changing someone's why and if you have the audacity to try... well, it doesn't matter much what i'd say to you (does it).

keep your little light (i blew mine out to hide from you).

Goodbye~

Goodbye 2012. You tried really hard to end me, didn't you? Then again, I feel that way about most years. Endings so close they can be tasted don't come along very often. Every breath was held as angels and demons placed bets on my soul, on my strength, on whether or not I had any fight left in me... It's been a long fucking year.

I was scared of you for so long. You bestowed the magic number on me this year. I was certain my demise came with turning 29. Turning 30 scares me even more... Kind of. The idea of living passed her... seems wrong, in a way. Like something in my genetic makeup is determined to end her line. We'll see, I suppose...

This year I learned that family has little to do with the one you're born into. Most people are selfish. Gray hair doesn't look half as bad as I thought it would. It's better to let go of people that don't love you for who you are than to change... you'll always come back around to whoever it is you are... and you'll slowly resent whoever it is that made you change. I'm still really good at bluffing when I'm scared shitless (that's a good card to have up your sleeve if you've been in some of the situations I have). There are people who feel the same way I do about love... that it's a give and take... and that... is the beginning of something amazing.

I fell in love. It wasn't graceful either. I still trip over my words and get tongue-tied. I stutter. Badly. I get butterflies and goosebumps and lumps in my throat and a pit in my chest... and it's wonderful.

If I had a choice to either go back and relive my life sans the tragedy or stay here now... I'd pick here. I'd pick now. I'm almost 30 and I'm just starting to learn how to be who it is I am... and it's hard and it sucks... but at least I have support... and love.

Goodbye 2012, my muse, my friend.