end credits. (scrapped draft)

 i turn 18 in 18 days. 

i promise you, this was not premeditated. i was just feeling not that great today. 

not great enough to distract myself from everything i was feeling.

not great enough to write in cursive. not great enough to care whether my writing is attractive enough.

whether i'm attractive enough.

everyone called me brave but i barely have strength to go on. 

some say that i'll make it through the rest if i make it to december. all i have to do is nothing. 

i wonder if they know that this is the hardest part of the year. doing it every year. 

it is a cruel mockery of everytime i say

i don't think i'll ever move past this

see now you'll have to, says life. 

i don't think i'll say that again. i'll always move past it. i'm brave like that, i've been told uncountable times.

***

it's scary to realise that you won't be missing the person you had been missing for a while. you got used to simply missing. it's scary to let everything go.

the year's not over, i think once in a while. but then again, i think a lot of people are meant to be missed than had. funny, i've always hated that analogy. choosing the ghost itch over the presence. 

maybe it only looks infuriating as long as you're grasping onto something. once you've unclenched your hold, everything looks fine.

everything is reasonable from an impersonal perspective. 

i didn't know that. now i know.

i never liked taylor swift. now i know. 

growing up looks emotionally abusive the way it's been happening.

***

sometimes i envy the version of me a year from now. and then other times, i feel sorry for her.

i'm sure future versions of me feel sorry for me too.

last year this time, i picked out the clothes i thought i'd look casually attractive in. nothing too soft. nothing too intimidating. nothing too much.

nothing too much.

i laugh now. a sad laugh, but still.

i didn't need someone to tolerate my heart. tolerate me. 

i felt bad when i realized that. 

apparently brave people have to say oh well and move past things.

they aren't allowed to go break bottles on people's heads. and bang it on a wall repeatedly. or land a dozen punches. 

i fucking hate being brave. lmao who cares.

sometimes god drops empirical evidence of time being inherently man made. 

man is cruel, holy christ.

***

the biggest power people used to have over me was ambiguity. it used to drive me crazy. knowing that i could be right. i could be insane. could be could be.

i was used to calling myself crazy. 

i might be,

but carl jung once said

in all disorder, is a secret order.

after a series of closed doors in my face, i ended up not really reading into anything. like everyone else.

there, two birds killed with one stone.

now, i don't care to settle scores. it's confusing and upsets me.

now, i'm not longer scared of seeming ordinary. or like everyone else. now, i don't have to carry material proof for people to see i'm novel.

people who did end up seeing me as novel, did. and the rest of the time, i was okay being the wallflower.

it never did me any harm :)

***

every winter my skin starts peeling like a snake's.

especially on my hands. that's always been the one part of me i didn't let people touch much. sounds strangely ironic, the way i've gone through names.

none of them really meant anything. i never let my hand close around any of them. i never climbed over the wall at night. 

now, i'm looking at a basket of broken eggs, and telling myself the truth. 

i've never liked endings, but all my essays had wonderful ending lines. ma always taught me to leave a nice starting line and a nicer finishing line.

that was always the advice i received before an english language exam.

every winter my skin starts peeling like a snake's. that's not a snake analogy. it's very literal.

especially on my palms

the old skin peels off and it is as if now, i have new hands. i like knowing that the moment's never been touched. 

i smile when i notice it.

it's a little bit more comforting than scary.

***

i've never been an easy person to get over. i usually don't say it much, because it evokes anger in people who are sensitive about it. because it could radiate a sense of pride i don't actually have.

i say it here, because here is where i can talk. 

artists are hard to forget.

i like calling myself an artist. if i am nothing else, i am that.

most artists, regardless of whether it was positive or negative, have been monumented by people they've come across.

i only ever loved one artist. 

he used to be a mathematician.

his art was patient, unlike mine. something i could never learn.

whatever i made was magic. disruptive, beautiful. all of that.

whatever he made was thought-out, unfeeling, accurate.

one day, he got really impatient. and i became mad. 

i like to believe that he tried to tell me that he didn't care for me anymore. it was tiring because i didn't give up. 

denial is not pretty.

my denial lasted for a good five years after he left.

i think he was the only person who left no trace of the thirteen years of me within him. 

it was when i realized that he had given up his art to become a speaker, was when i started to forget him.

i didn't think anything would come close to the loss i dealt with then.

but i was a kid. what did i know of anything ?

***

it gets bad when i start blurring my morals. my rights and wrongs.

it gets bad when i start thinking of alternate ways to approach the situation. wrong ways.

it gets bad when i add another page to the book. just for good measure.

like no

why would i need to.

no.

one day my nos will get strong enough to scare people.

one day i will scare people in the way i want to.

sometimes i wish i went and lived in antarctica. there are so many of these godawful people who mean nothing of what they say and do nothing of what they don't mean. 

the public loves complication and misery loves company.

not me though. not me i'm in antarctica. leave me alone.

***

                                                       Unequal Marriage - Vasili Pukirev

jesus christ. leave women alone.