To act in the dark is to act in the light

Either or, no difference here.

I wanted for so long to beat the tide, differentiate myself from the world.
That everyone else is my competition, and that I, for so long—am something different.
Something that I'd need to shout to the heavens.

"Look!! Look!"—Like a child waiting for their mother to watch them jump off the diving board, I've never really outgrown that.
It's partially selfish.
But is it still selfish when you think you have something to 'give' with it? There lies the mindset, now am I egotistical? Or still selfish? Both—probably.

I never wanted to grow up, it came at me fast while I was young.
Lately, I've been looking through the lens of what 17 year old me would feel, act, show.
I learn fast, but I would never begin to conceptualize what starting treatments, chemo, arthritis—every pain incarnate, would do to me. It feels like a sick joke, nothing I do is normal, nothing I feel is either. It rests in that though.

I can think back now, vividly to these past few years. I know heartbreak more than ever. There's an itch inside of me to always be moving, it leads me to never actually start anything.
But, I want to do it all, only because I know I can. Consistency is the huge struggle with it all now.
Weaving words into notes, sounds into art, atonal noise into melody.
Sometimes it feels like a superpower, other times it feel like there's something underneath my skin, crawling out of me.
These bugs just scare away my own nature.
My skeletons make me unlovable with the likes of the worst out there.
Why is comparison now there?

I don't want to be a bad person, a scar on your heart, 'the one that got away' — I want to be me. With freedom of my own tongue.
Words cut.
And these days I see myself holding in anything from compliments to pejoratives, the line is so hard to tread on.
It feels like sinning.

We're all going to do it…sin, break.
Minds change, words fizzle. Maybe we become what we hate during that process. Because it takes time. It takes failure.
It takes a point of no return.

My struggle is making sure I can return, even when I don't want to.
There's solace in quiet retreats but, I still ache for the loudness self-expression of others brings.
There lies my own nature, the human-factor, our beings, our doings…the love for love sake—now I think that's more of what I want to be.
Human.
Because humans make mistakes, like leaving home without your keys. Or keeping your soul in someone's arms until the crushing weight of you brings both of you, down.
I clung to you hoping we'd both drown, and it turns out neither of us could swim. Another life boat comes, now only I'm left treading water.

For now though, maybe that's all I want. Maybe that's all I'll get. I want to set fire to the entrails of my past, and live.
I want to see the high-rise of the mountains that still stand tall.
I want to look over and see a soul in my bed who can speak as softly as me, a still remain.

To shout loud enough to break the windows.
I want to hear the goods, the bad—a certain kind of ugly that neither of us can possess, it's just what we are.
Fickle.

-alice

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xoxo