there is nothing worse in the entire world than venting to someone & them not having anything to say in response. except perhaps when they give you transparent condolensces about that just being the ways things are. because stating injustice like a fact never made it feel more fair to me. it never lessened the swell of my frusteration. it never made the clouds of incomprehension scatter to reveal lucid blue skies. because humanity has this bad habit of tossing around words like "deserve" and america claims to have entire branches of governement dedicated to "justice". and religions preach various overlapping standards of what is "good". and by the age of ten you think you've got it pretty much figured out. you don't steal your neighbors pencil. you don't talk back to mom and dad. you don't hit your brother. you listen and take your turn. and you learn. you learn that guns are bad but sharing is good. drugs are bad but fruits and vegetables will always be good for you, even though you're quite certain that cookies and candy taste much better, you learn that that doesn't matter. you learn that name-calling is mean but hugs are the best way to make anything okay. you learn that it's important to say you're sorry, but more important to actually be sorry. and if you throw in a few pleases and thank yous, you are on your way down the path to divinity. help an old lady cross a street and you're one step further. they try so hard to teach you, and you grow up thinking that good feelings come hand in hand with good deeds and that sadness is only the result of failing to follow the simple black and white rules. if only the ten commandments were the recipe for happiness. what i would give for that kind of simplicity. more and more i begin to believe that if there is a god, i'm not quite certain he's the type i feel is deserving of my praise. i was such a good little catholic girl. i prayed for everyone in a perfect little order each night before i fell asleep. i lead my church's children's choir. i played mary in the nativity play. i actually knew and understood the words that most people just blindly say. but the struggling began early. and it became so much more than just trying to find perspective. i can handle learning lessons, but there has to be a lesson there. if i humble myself in front of what i fail to understand, there should be someone with a lesson plan in hand. and i keep asking everyone what i am supposed to take from this life of absolutely nothing, this steady balancing point between joy and misery, this sadness that comes only from failing to grasp how i could make it any better. & the only answers i've gotten are silence or a quick change of topic. before i start, let me say that my life is at worst okay. i'm not dying, neither is anyone i love to my knowledge. i have family and friends that i love more than anything, for their merits and flaws. and i have more of my health than i've had in a while. i'm doing well in school. i've got future plans to make money. i've got a roof over my head and food to eat. i'm social. i can succeed in all the common place ways. but if those things were the proper variables in the equation for happiness i think much more of the world would be walking around with a smile on their face. sometimes i think it should be enough. i remember how it feels to lose someone, to feel completely alone in this world, to be physically incapable of doing what you want, to feel inferior or less intelligent or talented than you feel you should be, to be consumed with thoughts of insecurity, to wonder if you'll ever fit in anywhere, and how you honestly feel that if you could get whatever it is you want it would be enough. but if you get it. you want more. i've always wanted more. it's a versatile tragic flaw. i'm probably the most fortunate miserable person i know. as far as living goes, i'd have to give myself an A for effort. and trying is supposed to be important. i was raised on the try, try again mentality. it was supposed to ensure that nothing would ever be too far from reach. but determination only makes your facade more transparent. i could choke on my fake smiles. i'm sick of playing nice. this world has given me no incentive to try.

because everyone can dismiss kindness until it's what they need. when they get it, it's just like everything else that is for a moment in abundance. it's value dissipates with every little gesture. nobody cares about the cards you leave under their doors if it's just something else to step on on their way out to something more. let's just forget i ever told you what you needed to hear, because now that it's been said the void is filled, what good would a thank you do? none. and it's all about you. there is no selfless, only a spectrum of selfish that spans those who could care less if it's clear their favorite image is their reflection, and those that are really good at hiding the way they check themselves out in reflective dinner plates or tinted windows. and me, well just because i let you pick the time and place & nod my head like a good submissive 1950s housewife doesn't mean anything. just because i spend hours making you cards to document nothing other than my apprecation doesn't mean much more than i'm afriad that you might leave me. i treat you nicely because i need you. perhaps that's the main reason we ever do half the things we do. need is everything. because need translates into almost every possible feeling. and since it's all about me, what's more important that how i feel today? nothing. which is why i'm writing this & thinking that anyone will actually waste their time reading it. because i'm that presumptous. we all are. we all want people to care, & to swoon over how fucking wonderful we are. we all want everyone to love us and cater to us. and above all else, we all want people to need us more than we need them. that, my friend, is the definition of security. that is what every single person breathing craves. but if we get it, it's not that grand. it becomes part of the packaged deal that is your life and will still never add up to enough. you become convinced that they simply are not enough. not the right kind of worship. or worse, you come to expect their encouragement, or kindness. you take them for granted. you add more fuel to this endless cycle of miserably distributed justice. where in the end, absolutely nobody gets what they deserve because everyone is so busy taking everyone else for granted. because in the race to satiate all you crave there is no time to appreciate. and compassion. perhaps i've got that. i don't want anybody to hurt. but that's just part of being an idealist. that's just part of wanting utopia and having enough good intentions to make up for all those that others may lack. i'd love for us all to prance around full of respeldent joy and be charmed by each other. really, i can't think of anything that would please me more. but i think the fact that that is impossible is the very thing that makes me so sure. we live in a world where we want is all we want until it's ours. that's truth. it's not beauty. and it doesn't make me happy. but it's unfortunately real. i can't deny that i am the problem. when good decent people take you for granted, it can't just be "their loss". because this world isn't fair or ideal and i still have to live in it. and there must be things i could do differently to make it more bearable. when people get to know you and claim to see so much and then fade away, you have to wonder how you manage to be so disappointing. you have to accept the fact that running through your mind all the time will be this endless loop of self-evaulation where you never measure up to anything. i envy you, only because you're not me. and all the billions of other options seem so much more wonderful. every single one. i try so hard to be good enough and then fear that i come off as better than everybody when i never even feel like i'm adequate. i give and give to feel the voids inside me, and wonder if that perhaps is the reason that i'm not recieving. so i try to fill the emptiness in other ways and find the strength to give without wanting reciprocity, recognition. to give in the true definition of the word. to appreciate what comes naturally. to be thankful for things that i've never even had to dream of doing without. and i manage to moderately succeed. and the feeling almost lightens the weight i carry every day. but i look around and see the people so consumed with themselves that continue to get more than even they could possibly pilfer away with greed. i have people tell me i'm too good for this world, and wonder how such a concept can be. this world is the only sure shoot i've got. i can't risk spending it in sacraficial misery. but i don't know how to not be me. and i'd give anything for a lesson. almost as much as i'd give for a reason why i'm so disatisfied and alone, why nobody bothers to think that maybe that girl over there that always smiles at me could use a smile back today, why it really feels like this burden will always stay with me, and how i can soothe the fear that in however many years, i may never truly be happy.