it's funny how things change. sometimes they change so effortlessly, so slightly, so slowly over time that you don't even realize it's happening until one day you wake up and feel like you've been hit by a goddamn freight train. it's almost painless when it happens like that, in tiny increments. decaying dreams and thoughts settle like dust in the very back of your mind until you're carrying the weight of one thousand dead memories. and all of that weight? you think you've carried it pretty well over the years, but it's time to pass on the torch. 

you ignore all incoming calls, you open the refrigerator, shut it and open it again in hopes something other than expired condiments will magically appear, you attempt to deny the fact that all you want to do is smash people in their stupid faces. if you hit them in the face just right you could break their nose. i've heard a broken nose is a many splendored thing, like an exploding rainbow, but the only color is red.

you think back to the very first time you remember being really pissed off. your first fight, your first adrenaline rush, your first broken nose. you laugh. you think back to the very first time you remember you realized you wanted to be a writer. your first poem, your first essay, your first creative writing class. you laugh more. as much as words have meant to you over the years, they're worth more to you than gold, but to most, to most it's an empty and weightless currency, they don't mean shit and they've been left to rust out like old drainage pipes.

you write because you suck at talking. you get too impatient with people, too angry. you write because no one can interrupt you, no one can talk back. you write because it's the only thing that really makes sense, it's the only thing you want to do. you write because you're too afraid to do anything else.