It's the way I didn't know him that made us so close, I think.
It's the way he needed me that made me need him, like a sticky addiction that clung to my dying heart.
Do you think it odd that from the beginning I knew it would end?
That I knew I wouldn't be able to save him that one last time?
Four score and a year later, and I'm still missing. I'm still loving. I'm still crying. I'm still utterly lost.
I write him letters.
I fold them up nice and neat like we used to in kindergarden, seal them with a kiss, and fly them up to heaven.


He never writes back.

Are hearts meant to be broken? It's like sticking a finely melded tea cup in the middle of a war zone--fragile, breakable, all in the midst of complete chaos. I suppose it's impossible not to be hurt at one time in our lives. But those of us who have hurt and been lucky enough to experience love through the pain--is that what makes all this worth it? "Risk", I think some call it.

2008.
People counted down the seconds. I counted down the years. Life is slipping away, and it feels as though my nimble fingers are covered in oil. I can't grasp time and make it slow down for me, if only for a moment. It passes by without a thought, without a care to those of us who needed more time. I just needed more time.

So what now? Do we all wish we could have our little time machines built into our little pocket watches? With one push of a button I would rewind it all--only to play it over again. I'm suddenly not so sure I would trade what happened. Somehow, through it all, I changed. I grew up.

But not in the sense that you're probably thinking. I'll always dance in the rain and proudly wear my mud stains. I'll always think I'm just "one of the guys" and laugh too loud or cry too softly. Fairytales are never out of reach, and my Happily Ever After is just around tomorrow's corner. I'll always be a princess, never denied my dreams.

And now--now I must live. I regretted this life for some time, you know. A puny existence slightly overshadowing a speck of dust. That's all I was, a distant voice in the crowd, someone for Somebody to step on. And I still am that person. Every other day. As for the days in-between that, though, I'm Me. I'm the girl who gladly inhales the polluted city air, who takes risks and jumps off of bridges. I'm the crazy that should be locked up but is too quick to catch. I'm the splash in that puddle, I'm the snapping tree branches in the center of a dead-quiet forest. The whistle in the wind. A gentle touch. That unregrettable lover. The Forget-Me-Not waving in the field of tall, dead grass. I'm all around you--when I'm not me. When I'm not the sappy, sorry child who drags the world down with her.

I'm as forgettable as the next face in the crowd.
But live my life, and you'll wear me like a scar on your wrist.

I'm as depressing as the latest soap opera.
But live my life, and you'll laugh till your lungs burst.

I'm as gone as last winter.
But live my life, and I will be all your seasons in one.

To Live My Life--you must Know Who I Am.

I am Me.
I am She.
I am the girl who didn't give up
when the world gave up on her.