Borrowed Book

"It's like when you buy a used book, and it's already highlighted," I explained.  "It's like I got a book with all the shitty parts highlighted today.  The other stuff, the good stuff, is still there.  I just got the shitty chapter today."
It wasn't a perfect metaphor, or even a really good metaphor, but it worked.
Because that's exactly what it felt like.  What it feels like.
This isn't my life.  I'm just reading about it.  I'm reading about the multitude of injustices in the worlds surrounding me, and I can't do anything to fix what's happened -- what's on the page is on the page.  And maybe it gets better in later chapters, and maybe I have a part in finishing the story.  I hope so.  But this chapter has already been written, and it sucks.
And I'm sorry, because my parts are the black-and-white, the uninteresting, the just-good, the unnecessary-to-highlight parts.  I don't add anything to the story.  I haven't moved the plot along.  Background noise.  What a privilege, to blend into the background.  What a privilege to be irrelevant.
I'm sorry because it's not fair, because I want to rewrite the whole book.
I'm sorry because you don't deserve any of this, you didn't ask to be that character, and when I couldn't explain what I was feeling and she said, "Like survivor's guilt?" I said, "Yeah.  Yeah.  Exactly.  Like survivor's guilt."

I'm sorry for how we background folk get by without catastrophe while you get highlighted in history books and memoirs and dreams.  I'm sorry you have to go through this chapter.
I'm sorry.
I love you.

Soul Circle

No one would believe me then, because they wouldn't take me seriously in closed eyes awareness, but I still think it was a beautiful concept.

The soul circle.

I like the idea that I might be in someone's soul circle.  I certainly know a choice few who are in mine.  Where sometimes it's not that I even want to spend time with you as much as it is that I want to melt together  into one being and just exist with you, not in tandem, but in unison, as a single being.  A sleepy being, at least right now.  Not understanding each others' souls but being each others' souls, being a necessary part of each other, a fundamental unit of the other's whole.

I literally cannot imagine existing without you.  Or I could, but it makes me sad and confused and lonely.

That's just how it feels with some people.  I want to be the place they put their dreams and fears that are too big for one soul.  We could share the burden.

And I know you love me, you most of all

because I tell you the worst

the worst things I ever do

or think

or dream

and you tell me right back

and at the end of the semester, when we see the other's face again,

nothing has ever looked brighter,

and I believe in nothing more.

You share my burdens and I share yours

and I hope, I hope you will not forget that no matter how heavy my burdens, no matter how full my plate or my heart, there is always room for yours too.  Your triumphs and your failures, they belong with me too.  Your smiles and tears and tantrums.  I am never too busy for sharing.

It's like how no matter how full you are from dinner, it seems like you can always find room for dessert.

You're the dessert. You're the shelf I keep empty just in case you need storage space.

You're in my soul circle; you are my soul.

So if you ever need that storage space, remember I keep a shelf open.  And when I meet someone new, I shove some of my own books into the closet to make a little more room.  It's like Mary Poppin's bag in there.  There's always more room, just in case room.

Just in case.

Just in case you need to share.

Why the fuck do I write these things.

Oh my god.

I am so easy to hate.

(Please don't mind me)

I do sometimes wonder if I've gone completely insane.