'cause nothing happens here that doesn't happen there.

I don't know if I can keep playing this game.

I wish everyone would just be honest with me.

I wish I would be honest with me.

Revealing that much emotion made me angry with myself, like now that I'm back in the ring and throwing punches I'm supposed to be as cold and bitter as I was before. I've learned too much since then; I can't pretend to be cold and bitter anymore because I'm not. I don't want to be unlovable, because, as pathetic as it sounds, I feel like I deserve to be loved. I don't want to look for love. I don't want to push and hope for it. I want to be content being with myself and being happy to be me. But it's so close.

It's right in front of my eyes. I only see it when I want to. I don't know if I want to see it all the time yet. I don't know if I want to have the conversations that need to be had, or do the things I know I have to do. I'm too scared. I know, eventually, that I will have to stop running.

She's a runner for sure. She'll run away every time without saying a word, but here's the thing: you're not a runner, and, deep down, I don't think she wants to be either. She just feels like she has to, partly because she's a tiresome, spoiled brat, smartass with no fashion sense, and partly because she's a fucking human being.

It's all so great, until a choice has to be made. It's all fun and games until you realize you're in too deep. I've seen it happen every time, and not only with me. I know that that's the truth. It's the only truth I know. I cling to that truth, and maybe that's why my capacity to love has been diminished. Maybe that's why I'm so scared, all of the time, of what's going to happen next. I used to be in control. I never questioned what was going to happen next, because I held all the cards. I could hold all the cards again if I wanted to. I don't want to though. I want to have faith enough to pass half the deck to someone else, trusting that they won't shuffle it too much, trusting that they won't distort anything so much that I can't recognize it.

Maybe I need something I can't recognize. Maybe my fear lay in recognition--recognizing the overwhelming pattern that repeats itself all the way to infinity. I want to break that pattern so bad.

To top it all off, it hurts to see other people happy, even when I am happy for them.

And it hurts to know that no one really gets it, because if they did, they wouldn't be so happy.