#rennav

reading nejiten is innocent and pure, the first stages of being 12 mixed with cutesy cheek kisses and visits to the main house, watching a pair getting accustomed to each other, bit by bit, in the passing time.

reading nejiten is being 13 again, couped up in the tear-stained 4 am sheets, reading about hope and death and the meaning of freedom.

reading nejiten is lonely 14-year-old nights, the anchor to my damaged self, drowning out the mean girl taunts and the betrayals and the knives digging into my back.

i miss those times so much, seeing myself reading the same material at distinctly different points of my life — watching it grow and mature, the meanings of the words changing as my perception of the world does.

then comes the ache; you’re tearing up over familiar words, a different person but emotional over the same reasons. you remember the you from the past, who felt these same feelings and cried the same tears over the same stories about two ninjas from konoha getting knocked up and down, struggling for a relationship. the thing that is bothersome the most is the thought of how you could have possibly felt these same feelings as a kid when you’re such a different person now?

then you feel like a kid. then you feel innocent again. free. but still bound to the art of the craft, the crevices of the heart, the soul of the ship.