i remembered today i was a ninja in 3rd grade for halloween. the costume cheap from party city, last minute among the scattered plastic bags, mom impatient. I bring it home. the whole thing is black, with bright blue shoulder pads and a bright blue mask that goes over the bottom of my face. I feel tough, i feel free. I have always liked ninjas.

” you are a cartoon character from a videogame,” the boys laughed. I hadn’t realized. i stood alone and I could smell the hot pavement and heard the sound of the tetherballs being hit, wrapped around and around the yellow poles, coming to a rest before being slowly untangled backwards, spinning in a deafeated circle. like my confidence was.

the other girls were dressed in tulle and sparkles, ballerinas and kittens and fairies. i buried the part of me that was free that day. The first time I was ever embarrassed to be myself.

if only I had known how COOL ninjas were ten years later..now to reclaim that spirit.

i went to the meditteranean today and poured my heart out to the waves and sat in the sand and below the candy colored buildings that were historic and looked like a fairy tale i finally breathed out…

but the shadow of fear will not stop following me like an unwanted stranger you have to entertain for hours and hours and hours….it will not leave me be, covering me in a blanket of walls i rode the train home in a rigid state half confused and half shocked at how i had gone from carefree to fearful in about 3 hours, i want to shake the shadow but i know it will leave in its own time, now the question is when.

I read a story in which a girl travels to europe alone and is confronted by THE FEAR and left after 3 days, i am thinking this is the same exact one, the one that pins people to their couches to their friends to their habits because they are not strong enough yet, not realizing there is a way OUT of the fear, and this is my goal for here…

i feel like my own therapist and this is fine but I am exhausted and i miss holding someones hand…

he has slipped from my mind like an accident. maybe it was mutual i don’t know but the sliver of the moon still left me with a pang of sadness because i saw his face when I looked up at the sky, oh and the beauty, the beauty of the mountains and the people and the landscape only let me sit comfortably for a minute before the shadow of fear overtook me again.

i am so, so tired, so so tired of RUNNING AWAY from this fear, this is what i have been running from yet there is no escape, none at all. because there is no such thing as FEAR at all.

i am in complete control of this yet still putting my hands up in surrender, more exploring will open more doors and more doors will lead to healing and finally maybe my heart will stay open and my walls will stay down.

i feel like i have brand new eyes and i released the sadness that was chained to my heart like an anchor. The river was a lazy flow, the trees painted onto the sky and each color i saw in a way i had never seen before. the energy of italy is not like anything i have ever felt before.

I let go of you, of expectations, and instead put in forgiveness and love where i had thought there was none. I CAN DO THIS. I am one with all but we are not the same.

i have choices every day.

i realize i am alone, and it feels incredible.

he is loud he is funny he is that charming guy without the underlying smirk of ulterior motives. “accept them,” he says. “it could be a lot worse.”

i wonder if my darkness is just a shadow on my soul i was born with carrying accidentally or if the pain is a product of the fighting, the suffering the screaming. the shadow chained to my ankle that i fell in love with.
a photo of us, smiling, so normal.
“it could be a lot worse.”
maybe my imagination created it. but the shadow wouldn’t still exist in the sunlight if i had.
love shines through every cloud break but how could we have all forgotten, we all forgot, we all forgot what family meant. a forgotten meaning.

in the airport she walked towards me smiling that same smile she wore when she picked me up from preschool and I ran into her arms, no chain around my ankle the following years would condemn me too.

i wept at security. happiness so close but obscured by the shadow it brushed my fingertips 16 years it took, 16 years and nothing had changed except space and time and her smile burned through the shadow and i am 4 again running into my mothers arms. nothing has changed but everything has changed.

i wept for her i wept for me i wept especially for the lost years.
how things could have been.
how things are.

maybe the path is to be walked with another but if every relationship is to end in coexisting suffering i will take my own hand and walk alone so if my pain is bottomless i won’t drown another. id rather be delusional and content by myself than to be clawing at reality and damaging another’s heart.

we all have a story some are simple some complex some long some short, but all tell of a similar pain, a similar heartache. if we all have a story why are we all alone telling it to the dark corners of our minds and playing a character in the production of our life.

we are many people; who we really are, who we think we are, who we want everyone to think we are. we are our pain. we are our dreams. we are many different worlds created in our own minds.

i am not prepared.

i dont really care if my emotions are ruling me today because i am scared as fuck.

FUCK YES

Why is it so damn hard

to be honest.

with you with me with her with him with them.

with me.

why cant i just say my truth.

for every spiritual step i take forward, fear trips me back.

what will it take?

i love your half smile. i love that you eat too many sour patch kids. i love that when you drink soda it makes you act like someone on drugs. i love that you take 10 showers a day even though it fucks up my hair. i love that you always walked me to the subway and wrote me directions to get home 4 different times. i love when you let me ride your skateboard and held my hand so i wouldn’t fall. i love talking to you on skype for hours and hours and losing track of time. i love that for you i took stupid risks like flying all the way to NYC just to say happy birthday. i love that you call me “love.” i love that you know nothing about love. i love that you bought me a toothbrush the first night i slept over and you didn’t even kiss me. i love that you have an awesome gay roommate. i love that you are a dreamer. i love that saying you smell good is one of the only things you use to describe yourself. i love that you call me out for saying “dude” every other sentence. i love your Ghandi tattoo. i love that you make fun of me for being directionally challenged. i love that you give amazing massages. i love that you took me to see Harry Potter. i love that you paint random cartoon characters. i love that you freak out and say “I’m a man!” every time you get scared. i love that you are self conscious of your dancing even though its amazing. i love that we can watch movies for hours and not get bored even though you make me pay attention the whole time. i love that you made me question everything.

i hate that i haven’t told you any of this.

sitting on the mountain has made things less about words and more about being still.

sitting among the notes the memories the laughs the signs and grandeur of being 15 years old.
every emotion was a drug, an unending rollercoaster of being trapped within ones own situation.
i feel a regretful nostalgia
of how foolish i was
how immature
how cocky
how ignorant
how blind.
Why don’t i recall how I was then?
but my 15 year old self is sitting within me
watching
blind, yet untouched
like a still pool with only activity beneath the surface
now that i have created ripples
and as my years i take to heal myself reveal
i am going to need to wait until my ripples slow
and eventually disappear
until the only activity in my pool of soul
is the slow undulating wave of awareness.