Hi. I try.

maybe im grieving what I lost. maybe i grieve what I never had.

it feels pointless to dream anymore.

i look up at the stars and ponder what im here for. there are no stars.

i look for a tree to sit against and lose myself to its serenity. all there is is concrete.

i reel my head back to draw in a breath of fresh air to feel this earth that I call home. my head returns coughing as cars whizz by.

little creature on the sidewalk, how are you? are you lost? do you need love?

you're scared of me. im not surprised. you've been hurt. i understand. you want your mother. me too.

i would wish a happy and healthy life to you. unfortunately, I know better.

i wish you to stay alive. i wish you to survive.

i wish when you inevitably pass, it's peaceful and calm. i wish not to see you smeared against the tarmac. i love you.

it's been years since I saw the flitting fireflies, illuminating my skies and my eyes. i have a small memory, almost fleeting, of a kinder past.

it dangles in the back of my mind, almost taunting me. a dream world, snatched from my fingers as i needed it more.

i wish things would change.

alas, i know better.

i wish i could hear the birds singing again.

alas, the warplanes never went silent.

I wasn't supposed to be.

It feels restricting, like it's suffocating me, this flesh. How can this contain the depths of the sorrow I feel.

I look at my hands and fingers turning and moving. Those aren't me.

I look at my legs walking and running. How can they move.

I look at myself in the mirror. Who are you staring back at me.

Who are you, speaking to me, way inside my head. my hands. my body.

I will find you.

I will rip away at my chest, and these fingers will move of their own volition as they dig into my ribs and tear out my flesh.

These legs will move of their own choice as they run to escape.

I will dig and dig and dig, until a gaping hole is left in the middle of me.

I will find you.

Am I in the twisted ribs? Or in the smeared chunks of flesh?

Maybe im in the blood drops that inch their way down the walls. Or maybe it's the head bashed open.

Maybe im the heart that lies clutched in my lifeless claw.

Im everywhere. Im nowhere.

I will never find you.

A home is created, not inherited.

As you live, as you grow, as you love, you meet new people, you see new things, you feel new emotions. You collect the ones you like, and you hold onto them. The rest fade.

And when everything has faded, what's left is home. This is your family. Your comfort. Everything you need. and everything you want.

When you have that one bad day, you will go back home. When everything hurts, you will go back home. When you want your mom, you will go back home.

But...

I made a mistake. One I would make a hundred times over. and a hundred more.

My home is fractured. I met too many. I saw too much. I felt too much.

My home is here. My home is there. I long for one while I have the other.

Two different corners of the world I call home. Neither can I have when I want.

I will be stuck in this state of longing. I love both. I want both. Can't I be selfish?

I don't want to grow up.

I want to go back home.

Where do I go?

but i wish i didn't exist sometimes

I will not jump in traffic.

I would rather my soul wither away

I will not eat poison.

I would rather they remove me from this universe

I will not drown myself.

I would rather the earth reclaim me

I will not hang myself.

I would rather the rain melt me away

I don't want to kill myself, I can't imagine bringing that pain to those i love.

and suddenly i can't breathe.

there's a clawing at my chest and i look down to find my own hands clawing away at my flesh, my own face screaming in agony, pulling away, tearing away at the flesh, tearing away at my soul, begging to be let out, let out, let out of this flesh which suffocates me.

i am more. no i am less. i am not this.

i don't know what i am. just not this. i dont know what to do with this. leave me. leave me. leave me.

i want to yell and scream and cry but who do i turn to. I can't turn to anyone. they'll be concerned. but they'll also ask.

"why are you sad?"

and i won't know what to say.

"millions of ppl want half of what you have"

i know.

"ppl don't achieve in a lifetime what you have by 23"

im sorry. i don't want to be sad. i don't enjoy wanting to collapse in the middle of the store and sob uncontrollably. i don't enjoy looking at my seemingly satisfactory life and wishing i never existed.

i dont want to harm anyone. but how do i stop it? i don't know. i can't go to anyone. i dont have a reason to be sad. i don't want to seem ungrateful.

yet it still wasn't about curiosity. you never asked the right questions. the questions whose answers would let me lay bare my woes and my wounds and everything in between. the right questions at the right time where answering those would let me pour out everything that's in me like blood gushing out of a wound with no end. an endless burning pain at the end of which i would be left empty.

but finally, at least, i would be empty.

and yet...

it wasn't about the right questions. i need help. and i am too much of a coward to ask for it. so i wish that by some fluke, maybe you see that im not myself.

maybe a silence that lasts too long,

a faltering step, a tear held back,

or my voice that just doesn't sound the same as before. and you do. and you ask.

"is everything okay?"

"yes"

is this what living is like? a gaping hole, a wound straight through the entirety of me, which I try to fill, but with a nagging feeling that nothing and no one can.

ive been waiting years for this feeling to go away. done so much that I thought would kill it. but slowly im realizing that life is not the culmination of the suffering, or the contentedness expected at its resolution, but rather the suffering itself. and i fear i may never be able to accept that.