_{Letters to Strangers}

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To you -

It's hard for me to imagine anything short of lying listless and empty on some sort of hard surface with a gun to my head at this point. I'm not exactly contemplating suicide I just think there's better things out there for me than whatever the hell this is. It's terrible when one basically mediocre day was the best you've had in a very long time - you'd think that somewhere between now and then I would've found myself time to actually be happy and enjoy myself.

And I really hate to stress you out. I really hate making you take deep breaths and try to tell me that everything is alright and then you go to bed worrying about me because we both know I'm not alright. I hate putting that burden on you, like two thousand worlds strapped to your neck, it just doesn't seem right. Yet, you still want to help. You still want to try. You still say that you wish I was happy and you wish you could get me out and you wish and wish and wish.

You tell me I can't run away.
I don't even know where that started.
I don't even know how you found out.
And I find it irritating that I somehow trusted you into telling you these things - the moments where I could've been gone, the moments where I almost kept walking and never turned back. I wish I could say it was for me. I wish I could say that I turned around and came back to whatever this life is because I know it was going to be better. No. I turned around for you. I turned around because every step I took was another millimeter of a crack in my heart, and I knew that it wasn't going to stop no matter how far away I got. It's painful.

So you tell me to stay and get an education because I "can't get anywhere without anything like that" and if I were to go rouge there would be no life for me and you think that I "will do great things for mankind."

I don't want to do great things for mankind. Mankind can fuck off and keep destroying themselves, there's not going to be anything in the world to change that. And you know it. But you put it in the back of your head and you ignore it and try to think better of it, meanwhile I'm standing on some cliff staring at the water some five-hundred feet below me, wondering how long it'll take until the ground crumbles beneath me because I'm too much of a coward and I hate to see people I love cry.

So last night Ben came to see me. He drove his dad's truck and we went to the lake and I felt like Las Vegas all over again laying next to Roxy wearing only a bathing suit and your red, stripped shirt. When they were gone I left. I went and watched some noisy fireworks on the other side of town and walked home with two people that I missed terribly and we sat at the baseball field for a good half hour watching the lightning off over Weed. I aced both of my finals. I looked nice. It was a great night, even if you weren't there to enjoy it with me. And I missed you. I missed you while Art had his arm around my waist and I held myself back from crying while he walked me home and Loki talked about his terrible sex life. I told them I didn't want to go. They knew. We stood out in the driveway staring off into space and talking absolute gibberish before I finally went into the house.

I hate having to answer to people that I really don't need to answer to.
I hate having them call me and ask when I'm going to be home.
I hate feeling like I'm dirt underneath someone's fingernail because I'm out living my life while they're inside watching TV and coddling over theirs.

And so, you... you try to make it better for me. And you try to help me. And I appreciate the fact that you at least try instead of stand there looking funny like everyone else who ignores it. They know I'm not myself. They don't give a fuck.


So I sit here in my continually antisocial mood, about to waltz out come 9:30 and deal with a bunch of arrogant strangers who will come in, look at all our pretty pictures, smile, and walk out. Meanwhile the other two will be pissed off because no one is buying anything, and I'll be pissed off because that's not what life is about but I can't tell them that because for some reason they've turned into those kind of people, too.

But you're right. I haven't written anything since early June.
It has gotten worse. And gradually it comes up and down and backwards, through one-way roads, it's like my mind is driving through San Francisco and just doesn't know where it's trying to go. So it's that you say I can choose my mood, it just takes a certain amount of willpower. You say I can decide my life but it just takes a little more hope for life. And you pause, and make sure I still have hope for life, and I don't say anything. I say I'm going to go to bed. I say I love you. I say goodnight. You say nice way to change the subject and that I don't seem "okay". I say goodnight.

Because I have used up all of my willpower trying to make everyone else happy.