More hurt than I dare to admit...

Broken every boundary...

Standing at the gate,

ready to meet my fate.

I won't run, 

the guilt is mine.

Too long denying all my crimes,

face what I deserve,

here comes judgment day.

You can hear the drop of a pin...

I am doing an exercise that could maybe calm me down. I just won't stop writing until I am at least three pages deep, and I'll breathe heavily as each word drips from me. Recent events have shaken me to my core, and I need to find a way to pick up the pieces and grow back into something resembling a person. I have disappointed the people I love. By not being strong. By letting fear guide me. And once all this is over. Hopefully soon. I will admit my weaknesses. I will apologize for them. And I will work on rebuilding myself into someone worth having. 

I am both ashamed and angry. I thought of myself as someone who could handle these types of pressures. Yet my mind is in such intense overdrive, conjuring fantasy after fantasy, replaying everything a thousand times. What could I have done differently? What could I have changed? And more devastatingly, what can still go wrong? The innumerable possibilities have paralyzed me. And I feel responsible for not being able to predict them correctly. The very mechanisms that have kept me sane over the years are now working against me. There is no way to calm the storm if I am the storm. And the lightning and thunder are just the beginning. 

I see everything true...

It's not that I ever expected much from my birthday. It was never something that was all that important to me. But today, as I am literally more in shambles than I've ever been in my adult life, I could really use a bit of birthday magic. I'm not a bad person. I didn't act maliciously. And I sure as hell didn't want any of this. So what is the way out? To cave in to a bully? Or to fight a losing battle? Or just give up, and move on? Or march on towards what is just? I wish she were here right about now. She'd know what to say, how to act, and tell me that despite it all, I am going to be okay.

There's a light on the road...

With a haunting dance...

Če je kje usoda,

naj udari,

naj pokaže smer.

Suppose, after all, that death does end all. Next to eternal joy, next to being forever with those we love and those who have loved us, next to that, is to be wrapt in the dreamless drapery of eternal peace. Next to eternal life is eternal sleep. Upon the shadowy shore of death the sea of trouble casts no wave. Eyes that have been curtained by the everlasting dark, will never know again the burning touch of tears. Lips touched by eternal silence will never speak again the broken words of grief. Hearts of dust do not break. The dead do not weep. Within the tomb no veiled and weeping sorrow sits, and in the rayless gloom is crouched no shuddering fear.

Spending my time wondering why...

The last few words of your life...

Pay the toll to the angels,

drawing circles in the clouds.

Keep your mind on the distance,

when the devil turns around.

Hold me in your heart tonight,

in the magic of the dark moonlight,

save me from this empty fight,

in the game of life.

The game of life...

Maybe it would be much easier to not know things sometimes. Things change, but sadly, life doesn't stop for anybody. And I wanted to laugh. Or maybe get mad. Or maybe shrug at how strange everybody was, especially me. I think the idea is that every person has to live for his or her own life and then make the choice to share it with other people. You can't just sit there and put everybody's lives ahead of yours and think that counts as love. You have to do things and I'm going to do what I want to do. I'm going to be who I really am. 

Now I just need to figure out what exactly "being who I really am" means. I could sit around and wonder and feel bad about each other and blame a lot of people for what they did or didn't do or what they didn't know. I don't know. I guess there could always be someone to blame. It's just different. Maybe it's good to put things in perspective, but sometimes, I think that the only perspective is to really be there. Because it's okay to feel things. I was really there. And that was enough to make me feel infinite. I feel infinite.

I'm having wicked dreams...

Usually, he walks around constantly believing in himself. He keeps repeating that he's okay, and that everything will be fine. He even adopted a mantra. Something he repeats to himself like a prayer anytime he's feeling overwhelmed or too riddled with fear. But there comes a time when even his mumblings cannot save him from the dire shifts life can throw at him. Because sometimes the truth arrives on him, and he can't get it off. That's when he realizes that sometimes it isn't even an answer - it's a question. Even now, he wonders how much of his life is just convincing himself that it will somehow turn out just fine. 

I'll picture us with the waves...

Back and forth likе a swinging door...

Didn't want to call it too early,

now it seems a world away.

I've learned that this ridiculous thing we call life will hit you hard in the face, then wait for you to get back up so it can kick you in the stomach. Can't even remember when I last spent the whole week in bed, but getting the wind knocked out of me reminded my lungs how much they like the taste of air. There is hurt here that cannot be fixed by band-aids or literature. It came together with the realization that, at my age, there wasn't anyone coming to save the day. But do I have to wear the cape all by myself? Because no matter how wide I stretch my fingers, my hands will always be too small to catch all the pain I want to heal. Believe me, I've tried.

Tomorrow is like yesterday...

Feel the fade...

I've been upside down,

I don't want be the right way round,

can't find paradise on the ground.

All I do is hide away.

All I do is play it safe.

All I do is live inside a cage.

All I did was fail today.

All I wanna be is whites and waves.

Something's gone terribly wrong...

Some people say there are true things to be found, some people say all kinds of things can be proved. I don't believe them. The only thing for certain is how complicated it all is, like a string full of knots. It's all there but hard to find the beginning and impossible to fathom the end. The best you can do is admire the cat's cradle, and maybe knot it up a bit more. History should be a hammock for swinging and a game for playing. Claw it, chew it, rearrange it, and at bedtime, it's still a ball of string full of knots. Nobody should mind. 

That's the thing, isn't it, when you grow with time, you learn to value it. You safeguard your peace from anything that seems to pull it down, even if that means transient happiness. He learned long back that life is a series of lessons, some bitter and well, some very, very bitter, but all of them assimilate into something so serene, so beautiful actually when looked from a distance. Because each time you're broken, you're made once again, some from the pieces that lay scattered on the ground while some entirely new coming from all across the sky. True serenity lies in knowing that life has been kind, even at the battles that were thrown along the way, and eventually letting your heart know that the biggest war you'd ever face is within. 

You know I'm impatient...

It is not the world that is scary. It is his perception of it. New opportunities are terrifying. But they're also blessings. Uncertainty holds the chance for him to gain so much. For him to finally do something different and to grow in unprecedented ways. He's too precious to wait around. He can go first. He can be bold enough to disclose his warmest thoughts and his most passionate expressions. They'll always guide him toward what he's worthy of. And they'll finally show him that his feelings, his needs, and his emotional depths matter and that his boldness will inspire others to change, too.

His final odyssey...

If this world were mine...

One day I finally knew what I had to do, and began, though the voices around me kept shouting
their bad advice and though the whole house began to tremble and I felt the old tug at my ankles. Mend my life, each voice cried. But I didn't stop. I knew what I had to do, though the wind pried with its stiff fingers at the very foundations, though their melancholy was terrible. It was already late enough, and a wild night, and the road full of fallen branches and stones. But little by little, as I left their voices behind, the stars began to burn through the sheets of clouds, and there was a new voice which I slowly recognized as my own, that kept me company as I strode deeper and deeper into the world, determined to do the only thing I could do, determined to save the only life I could save.

I don't know how to act...

I checked my pulse,

and my heart's still beating.

Exhale, I think I'm still breathing.

Both feet on the ground,

 but something's changed.

Chose myself instead...

He had a bizarre rapport with this mirror and spent a lot of time gazing into the glass to see who was there. Sometimes it looked like him. At other times, he could see someone similar but different in the reflection. A few times, he caught the switch in mid-stare, his expression re-forming like melting rubber, the creases and features of his face softening or hardening until the mutation was complete. He felt his inner core change at the same time. He would feel more confident or less confident; mature or childlike; freezing cold or sticky hot. He slipped into the depths of the looking glass and couldn't be sure if it was him standing there or an impostor, a lookalike.

He felt fully awake most of the time, but sometimes, while he was awake, it felt as if he were dreaming. In this dream state he didn't feel like himself, the real him. He felt numb. His fingers prickled. His eyes in the mirror's reflection were glazed like the eyes of a mannequin in a shop window, his colour, his shape, but without light or focus. His weeping fits would pass and he would drag myself back to the mirror expecting to see a child version of himself. Who are you? He'd ask. He could hear the words; it sounded like him but it wasn't. He'd watch his lips moving and say it again, who are you?

Rock me through the dark side of the morning...

The kind of thing that doesn't make you proud...

It's becoming increasingly hard to keep a cool head. I feel myself spiraling, a volcano inside me ready to burst open. And I can't contain it anymore. Whether I'm propelled by my recent failures or just stepping into a new era of zero fucks to give, I am becoming quite a polarising figure. It is now evident that I have a trigger built into my head, not aware of its existence whatsoever. But a single word can pull the trigger, forcing me to feel numb and allowing the shadows to sip through the cracks in one built-up shell. One quick shot. 

Hear the whistle blow...

Nothing else had ever worked out...

My mind is wandering. It seems I strayed off course right into the eye of a tornado. I wish I were here with someone who could bring peace to my heart. Someone with whom I could spend a little time without being afraid that everything would be destroyed come next sunlight. Someone like her. With that reassurance, maybe I could, even amid the chaos, find time passing more slowly. We wouldn't even have to talk, just be silent for a while because we'd know that against the sheer force of a tornado, there is little room for conversation. Just for a bit, I wouldn't have to worry about serious matters, about difficult decisions and hard words. Only for a bit. 

To the faintest of moonlight...

To the ends of the Earth, 

I will follow you,

where the horizon meets the sunrise, 

if that's what you choose to do.

If you choose to love me,

until the end of the Earth,

I'll be your man.

Having a little too much of something terrible...

Life is amazing. And then it's awful. And then it's amazing again. And in between the amazing and awful it's ordinary and mundane and routine. Breathe in the amazing, hold on through the awful, and relax and exhale during the ordinary. That's just living heartbreaking, soul-healing, amazing, awful, ordinary life. And it's breathtakingly beautiful.

There are those who have been seeking him for over a lifetime but will sadly never get to meet. And there are those he wants to kiss but who trample him beneath ungrateful feet. There are two beasts within him. One who seems to favor the clever and the fair, and the other who is petty and overzealous. He admires all who are still brave enough to dare to know him. By large, his machinations and conjured fantasies are soft-handed and sweet, But scorned, he becomes a difficult beast to defeat. For though each of his strikes can land a powerful blow, when he kills, he will do it slow.

Only I will remain...

I know a little something about fear. We've become quite accustomed in the last few months - more so than I ever thought possible. But what a relief it is to give into it. To let it flow through me and grasp at my innards. And how easy it is for me to persuade myself that I'm doing the right thing, that I'm making the smart, safe decision. But fear is insidious. It is after all, the little death that brings total obliteration. And my pledge, as I start a year anew, is to face it and find ways to not be held hostage by it. For it takes anything I'm willing to give it, the parts of my life I don't mind cutting out, but then when I'm not looking, it takes anything else it damn well pleases, too.