I should be reading

For one of my many, intense lit classes but I don't have the particular book I need so F it. Way to be on top of things, Carmela.

September is such a beautiful word. I cannot get this month of out of my head and it hasn't even started yet. I'm so sleepy, so tired of the heat and running around and just feeling like a zombie, hiding feelings -- pretending, really. I know things get better with time but you don't notice the effects of time until later on down the road.

I am focused, I will say that. But my mind does wander from time to time. And when it does, it wanders to a place of hurt. A place of regret, anger, and downright negativity. I hate you.

I hate you for lying. I hate you for manipulating me. I held on to every fucking word you said like a fool trying to catch raindrops. You're a phony. You're fake. You think you know what you're doing but you don't. You run around trying to act like an adult all while hiding that little tail between your legs.

You piss me off. I piss me off. I let you tie all those strings to me and soon I didn't move, I didn't peep unless you motioned me to do so. Who the fuck are you? Honestly. Who are you? What the fuck did you have over me that I felt so obliged to give everything I fucking had to you?

Who the fuck are you?

You're not real. You don't exist. You're a ghost, that's what you are. You float and float and float. You can't touch anything, grasp anything, feel anything. You're empty and hollow. I feel sorry for you.

I feel sorry for me. For having ever put so much effort into someone so empty.

I can't lie. I, myself am not a ghost. But my heart feels like one. Empty and hollow, transparent. Nevertheless, there is a small flame burning inside of me. Bright as ever, full of compassion and love and truth and beauty and a yearning to connect with others. Still. After all of this, I still want to live and know love and grow and read and write. And be myself. And learn how to keep myself for me.

It is a difficult, winding road full of rhetorical questions and tears and bruises and things I will remember for as long as I can remember them.

But the flame is there. Casting a deep, amber glow across all the things I've ever wanted for myself and all the things I want to achieve.

And that flame is faith. And it's mine :)