RISK EVERYTHING FEAR NOTHING

Dear you,

You’re a perfect example of the desperation I see all around me, people trying to find a cure for their loneliness, only to feed it more by spreading the disease. Let me reiterate;
you are pretty much the physical embodiment of all things I loathe.

You talked about your life like I should be inspired or something.
Believe me, the only inspiration you gave was for this writing.
Things left better unsaid got the best of me. They still do.

There is a moment I can still replay in my mind like an insidious video recording. I’m standing in our living room and I am sixteen years old. I am upset, but I don’t recall the reason. Looking back, it was probably something minor. I’m in an altered state of consciousness, facing constant confusion; questioning my own fucking sanity. I feel I’ve lost all self control, hanging onto something that’s only bringing me down. I remember with clarity, questioning myself how much longer it will be I strive to fulfil the emptiness inside my heart. The hotter the pursuit, the more elusive it became.

It was months before I saw with clarity once again.

After multiple hospital admissions, police reports, interviews and court proceedings, spending the night of my sixteenth birthday in the emergency room after a four hour recap of every, single, fucking detail, I still wonder,
what if I could change it all?
Would I change it?
What if the alternative future didn’t include the amazing people I have surrounding me, I love enough to die for?
What if in changing the past, and removing the pain, I never wrote a single word for anyone to read?
If I held the key to the past, I would stand on the edge of the sky and let it fall wherever it was meant to be.
That’s where it belongs.

It was easy to forgive you when I realised how damaged you were inside your own heart. I imagined you first as that wounded little boy you once were, and the rest came easy.
No, erase that last bit.
Fuck you.
Fuck. You.

“I wish that I could cry. At least maybe I’d know how I feel. I remember how easily the tears used to come, and it seemed for no reason. But I can’t cry. The whole world is cause and effect; I cry, people ask questions. There are days I want to scream, punch something, anything to release it all. This is my burden, no one else’s. My life. My thoughts. My memories. My nightmares. And for every question, I learn to fake this smile a little more.

Maybe I’m a little bit over my head. I feel so far from where I’ve been. How could one night affect me like this?
He got arrested today.
“I’m fucked.” This time it was him screaming.
Did I just fuck up a man’s life?
After all he has put me through why am I still haunted with guilt? With fear he’ll come after me, again?
Fuck emotions.
Make this all go away.”
- 3^rd May 2007.

There are still those nights I lay sleepless, expecting something more, anything.
An apology?
Explanation?
Some sort of sign your regretful of this, a little at least?
In the eyes of the law justice has been served, but in my head during those sleepless nights I know this has not yet ended.
The scars still here. A constant reminder of what you did.

The one downside to justice; it feels good but it doesn’t change a fucking thing.

I hope to hell you die a painful death and karma gets you, because I am not strong enough.

From,
Me.

Click here to read part two.

Seriouslly, it’s getting old finding the things I write copied and pasted, word for word, everywhere.

You think I don’t know. I do.

Dear you,

I watch people almost relentlessly where ever I go. It should be disconcerting, it is a little, how I figure out lives at a glance and I am sure, so sure, that I know what is going on with someone.
It doesn’t matter where I am; people at work are artsy and insecure in their black shoes and smart buns; wealthy suburban mums are throwing their energy into organic food and dairy imitations and yoga classes to distract them from their pure terror at the plainness of their lives; sad young men have learned how it is vital to hide their heavy thoughts and pretend they don’t give a fuck when really, it’s killing them inside.

It is simple enough, and I am certain of my findings, but every now and then when I do this I experience an unsettling connection. Usually its eye contact; and I look away, and they look away, and we both know that we are the same, watchers; that we are assessing each other, and that sits as a pit in my stomach. We often offer each other difficult smiles hiding fear and mistrust and suddenly, I will be so aware of myself and I will feel small and vulnerable and uneasy, and I will move off, and I will assume they feel the same way, and I will struggle with the fact that there are people who feel they know me just at a glance.

Hypocritical, isn’t it?

But then, I saw you. You had the most beautiful face, but your eyes, were the saddest I’ve seen. You were tired and weary, the kind of tired that doesn’t go away from getting to bed a little earlier. I didn’t know your name or your story, but I knew how you felt. And I realised in clarity that flashed for a moment, maybe two, that I just met my match.

So I did what I always do; I sat back and picked at the layers, looking for secrets, looking for a change in the texture of interaction, looking for subtlety. Maybe I wouldn’t find anything. Maybe I’d recognise vulnerability and stop looking, afraid to violate privacy.
But I didn’t. I listened carefully enough to find that your heart’s beat was a little different; it had developed a sad murmur.

For that one moment we locked eyes, nothing mattered. We’re looking curiously into each other’s eyes, wondering what could be, what should be, but what won’t be. And for that split-second, I felt safe in an unsafe world. You were just like me, although neither of us would ever admit it. Why else do you think this letter’s anonymous?

You have no idea how lucky you are.
You are not too weak. You are not too young. You are not too poor. You are not too sick. You are not any of the things that stop you from doing what must be done. You are right here. You, are just right.

Yeah, I judged you, you know why?
You reminded me of myself, and that scared me.

Love,

You never know what you have until it’s gone.

You always know what you have, you just never thought you’d lose it.