I was particularly hungry today and I’m becoming a much more well-rounded person. It is middle school all over again. I wish you knew me when I was younger. That time in life breeds a beautiful innocence that understands one another much more clearly and deeply than the complications of reservations for love we impose on one another when we grow older. I can’t remember if I was confused during elementary school or if things just came to me naturally. I was far too silly and people would have to calm me down constantly and criticize my nature. Free-spirited. Naked on camera. I was a good liar, I remember that, but I was also very deep, and believed in mythical phenomenons. I was a superhuman mutant and convinced many children of this reality. I think as we grow up we get shallower and accept less of the extraordinary. I didn’t have much to lose apparently, or so thought many parents who knew me. But what I did have, I lost anyway. Not to mention I am waiting for the day when the comfort of my lilypad raindrop garden dries up and I am forced to figure it all out without a safety net. I can hear the bitter words of being out on the street without a choice. I think of these things most often whenever I can see a solution (an escape plan) most clearly, because like the stupidity that still breathes in my everlasting being, I mess things up foolishly right before any sense of an ending. A beautiful broken butterfly dying trying to fly. It will be disgusting, but who knows, maybe I’m older and know better and I’ll never be alone. Maybe I’m wrong. If I were to bet on myself, I might. If I were someone else betting on me, I’d break my heart and leave. Summer is almost over and it appears that I have built the greatest sandcastle known to man. My plan. It is beautiful and romantic and makes me happy, even if it won’t come to fruition the way I plan (which things, thankfully, never do). Did you know Fitzgerald wrote during the period of modernism? I always thought it was romanticism but I have never taken one English course. If you can’t tell I’m reading him. I taught myself how to read. And writing came naturally and friendships once seemed to be more important than they are today.

I often see bad decisions flash before my eyes. I can fast-forward, rewind, and replay me sneaking out of bed at three o’clock in the morning for a bowl of ice cream. If it is so wrong why does it make life worthwhile? I think it is extraordinary that we exist at all, and we would have no way of knowing if we never did. I’m a noisy kid. I blubber with my mouth full in decadent indulgence, or at least, I did. Why give up so much for so little? Irritable. So young and so fragile, but when I am alone with my shower thoughts, all I can think about is how much better my life would be if I never made any mistakes. Regrets are going to be saved for another article but MISTAKES make the muppet of a man. A mistake may always look innocent but is really a woman dressed as Oliver Twist. I’ve always been good at looking happy while I die a little inside. Why do we insist on obscuring reality? It is so beautiful when left alone. I was always too different. I tried so hard to find the right balance, but I kid you not, I never was better than when I couldn’t remember my last shot. I’d feel burnt to a crisp when I finally went to bed, waiting for the next late-night crime to unwind in this crummy world until I realized, at last, I had fallen behind. I still am playing catch up, but it isn’t fun. I have some good role models, who show that even at the top, you could be extremely miserable, even if you still miss it.