friend,
let’s get real, real quick, just for a moment…
i grew up with you, my best friend, and you know me better than anyone else.

i’m hesitant to say that you don’t exist, because even though logically i know that’s the truth, inside somewhere i made you real. inside somewhere…you clawed your way up and made yourself real.
you know, and i know…

so you can understand when i say that we’re playing a very lonely game, you and i…
from the times that you’re all i need, to the times where we can barely sit next to each other, while still acknowledging the fact that we always do and must. we wouldn’t be anywhere without each other…if i didn’t have you to talk to and make myself known, i wouldn’t have the faintest idea of who i even am, or what i’m capable of. if you didn’t have me to accept and understand you, you would have disintegrated us in wrath just to make a point a long time ago…and to tell the truth, i would have even been glad for it…but it’s because of this duality of our nature that i feel something like being whole, something that i’m proud of, even if i judge myself for it all the time…if it so happens that no one will understand, you and i do…if it so happens that no one ever knows who i am, you and i do…

under the listless eye, where light sinks to die, i see you…
i see you, and i know when i’m on my own, i am not alone…

so here i am, digging out of the story i tell myself…because the story doesn’t matter anymore. i can hold on, or i can let go, and despite the fact that the past will always be a part of who i am, it doesn’t make me who i am…i could focus on what’s happened, assign blame and justification to every choice of my actions, i would and could for who i was in the past…but that doesn’t matter anymore, not when i’m trying to be someone different now…
and yes, i am different, different in the sense that i don’t want you or i to be only the version of myself i let people see anymore.
different in the sense that i don’t have to be.
i am afraid though, don’t get me wrong, i’m always afraid. but fear is its own torture, i think i’ve come to live that too well at this point. i will always be afraid, but it doesn’t mean i can’t live out a life that it isn’t always punctuated by the regret of fear…whether or not i achieve everything i want, whether it be love or fulfilment, isn’t the point…only the resolve to keep going is all that matters…
but again don’t get me wrong, i am afraid…the world is a scary and strange place that i don’t understand at all…

and that’s where you come in…you, who seems to revel in the fear and the pain it brings up. you, who likes to brand the fun into my grandiosity with gaudy lavishing, and remind us of the weird little kid we both know we were. remind us, and take joy in pain and shame…i wouldn’t trade you for anything…

at times i’m amiably either one or the other, and at other times we’re both warring for the spotlight…at other times still, we’re both loving each other like twisted bedfellows…as weird and uncomfortable a thought as that is…heh…
we’ve tried to kill each other off before, and we’ll probably continue that crusade for the rest of our lives, but we always come to the truth that neither one of us exists without the other.
sometimes it’s a source of pride, other times hate…but always it comes back around to necessity…and eventually gratitude.
but i haven’t said anything you don’t already know have i…

so, i am i am…friend.
i am, and i am…