Honestly though, how exactly does being in love feel like? And how does one know that they are in love? Is it when Shakespeare does not cringe you out anymore? Or is it when you all of a sudden pour yourself a cup of hot, sweet tea one day with this bubbly feeling in your chest and step out onto your porch and find that it's raining outside and you look down to find those pair of red Crocs you don't wear anymore because your friends teased you till no end for it and you see that rainwater has collected itself in it and then it hits you like a bolt of lightning when to the contrary it's a peaceful downpour outside and you realize that their smile was the reason behind that weird sensation in the pit of your stomach and that oddly enough whenever the topic of love came up among your colleagues you instinctively looked over at them and as it turns out, you have loved them from the very day they ran down seven flight of stairs to return that little piece of paper with the name 'Martha' scribbled under a phone number which had at some point fell out of your pockets with a goofy smile plastered over their face framed under their disheveled, brown hair and their silly yet innocent assumption of 'Martha' being someone special.

The state of mind I am in right now is probably the last one I should be writing in. But I cannot help but feel like if words were to not fly from my fingertips then I would really feel like I am going down a bottomless pit, away from the sun and with whatever little hope my parents had pinned my left breast pocket with. Being an utter failure right before you are one and yet being mentally unable to get your life back together is just cruel. And above all, selfish. There are souls who trip on their path in life and some never can get back on their feet and yet the ones like us, like me, who can see the little distortions and bumps on the road and are fully capable of avoiding them choose to let our feet not change course and trip anyway, calling out the name of God and the injustice he inflicts on us as we head down. Ironical. Why? The world deserves better. The people deserve better. Hooligans with no care in the world should not be given the insight they so poorly make use of. And yet, like the narcistic, selfish prick I am, I shall hold onto whatever insight I have and not let go and continue playing the role of a blind man and trip every other day anyway while playing a fool and blaming God.

I choose to not believe that you are broken by what you claim to have broken you. It seems a myth. Beautiful souls like you are born when someone puts a needle through your seed. It takes harsh hands and scrunched foreheads and nervous glances over the shoulder as you are so sadly dismantled and let to be dried out in the sun and clinging to something impossible. Your soul climbs out of your devastated carcass of a shell and spreads wings and roots and summons lightning it never thought it had and you see yourself be build back up from ground with the ashes of past as foundation and lessons of the present as your bible and with one foot on the concrete and other in the mud you pause and take a deep breath, take in all you have been through, all the miseries you have been flogged through and finally you take your first steps and in a matter of a few seconds you are you and not you and the You you strive to become.

That neutral look on your face. I want to read it, but you are denying me access.

They laugh. They cry. They smile. They love. They hate. And somehow, I find myself not a part of their system. Even when I do the same. It has become their society. Not our Society. The very place I grew up in which my parents taught me to call Society just was not for me. I could not fit in. I was trying to. But the cost of it was that I was killing my true self every day. I was chipping away parts of me like woodwork the Society deemed were irregular ends and I continued to saw away the best parts of me, the only parts of me that made me, me and for what? To fit into Society's Sand Box. No number of sandcastles the Society can ever offer to compensate the pain, the loss, the death they caused of the little kindergartener inside of me who simply wanted to get out and feel the supple sunshine on his face and taste the salty sea wind and point at the stars in the pitch, black, smoky city sky in awe and just be free. The little kid in me was like the butterfly growing in a cocoon which was thrown off the branch by the ferocious wind and never got to come out. That little drop of water slipped through the crevices in my palm and was soaked in by my pillow which had just moments ago refused to take my tears. That little drop of water was what the Society deems Normal and the pillow, much to the contrary of its texture, is the Society shaking their heads to accept something that came from something 'abnormal'. I am a volatile, versatile being. And it may shock you, Dear Society, but there are more like me. I am aware that some things are not your fault. You are structured to withstand change. You always have been. Changes are not pleasant, but even you shall have to agree that Nature is Law and when she slides into the room with her gown afloat, you are but a mere pawn, a mere thread let free from her dress to live out alone, and yet you are not to rifle with her rules. Not ever. You may be independent but alive only under her umbrella.

Call me mad. Call me ballistic. These words simply needed to be said and I know they make sense to not one living soul, but that holds no concern. If they remain before my eyes, the blue marble can continue its twirling and the cigars can keep on leaving their shelves.

Some perfect moments are just lost to second thoughts, second actions, second places to be and second seconds.

I knew I was wrong, that my reasoning was wrong and yet I defended the criminal till no end. I let anger boil in my chest and between my eyes and in my forehead and I let words fly away like arrows mounted over bows with intent to hit home and not miss. I did not consider the victim. I did all this because I saw myself in them. I saw myself in the criminal and I am sure it was only I who noticed the subtle slump in their shoulders the look on their faces which to others seemed apathetic and not guilty, it seemed like, it whispered to me, that they knew they deserved this. That what they did was wrong and sinful and where they stood today among the watchful, scrutinizing eyes of many, was no misunderstanding. The only misunderstanding was in their heart. The one they gave into and did what they did to stand here today with no will to fight and simply be tossed into the pits of hell before the cowardly human that wanted to live in them overrode their contempt and acceptance of their crimes and made a scene which would only add to their list of regrets. What the society fails to see under the pretense of every crime being weighed and dealt with equally is that true evil is not in the crimes but the emotions, the thoughts, the nature of a person that led them to commit it in the first place. Some criminals are lonely kids at heart under the rain looking for their lost yellow shoe. Kids who simply want to abandon that lost shoe and run home and into the arms of someone who would assure them that not all is lost, and they shall get a new pair of shoes soon. These kids know not of such a home and the only warmth and love they know is of that lost shoe which with its other part let them run over the hard concrete when chased by dark beasts and it was that pair of shoes that was always there on the banks of the river right where they had left it to go take a bath. It is this kid that lets hope be diminished in their heart and lets exhaustion take over their soul and sadness pollute the blood in their heart and let the weird feeling, weird voices in their tainted minds tell them which path to follow all the while muffling out the tiny voice of their true selves behind the bars of their mind trying to call to them, to stop them, to just hold on a little longer. Sometimes evil is not truly a pure evil. It is simply a converted evil. Converted, transformed, changed into something entirely else due to things they sometimes loosen their grip on.

But if one were to apply what we did to the criminal, that is, we tried to understand the criminal, to the society instead then it will not take one too long to realize with a jolt that there really is no one at fault here. The society was structured to stay the same. It is that monument which was built to withstand the effects of time and somehow has managed to do just that. Its core beliefs are set in stone. It was erected to be that one constant soldiers of all kind could return to. Soldiers who not only fought in war, but also the ones who continue to fight the perils of life. Understanding someone is akin to forgiving them. Or at least trying to.

The concept of wrong or right only came about when someone realized they cannot be treated one certain way and the concept grew when that very someone or maybe someone who was not them learned to sympathize and empathize.

Trying to be there for everyone while completely disregarding your own responsibilities and your own demons is tough. Or maybe that is just me. I do not know if I genuinely care. I do not think I genuinely love anyone. All that matters is maybe what they see and think of me. Ever since I could remember it has always been about them and how they perceive me and not about what I want. Honestly, I can give it all up and become a rather apathetic, blank, selfish soul and not give a flying rat's ass about anything and probably the only reason I keep up the game, the charade, is that I am scared to end up alone. I fear people leaving me. It has always been the other way around. I am the one constantly moving towards the door in a relationship. And I know this can happen to me as well and I just do not think I can bear that. But I am still unsure of my feelings. Ha! They are feelings. They are infamous for being misleading. What would I expect? Being alone. The mere thought of it. I just do not know. I believed that I knew that I could tell right from wrong, but what about those decisions which involve rather personal and one's most insecure feelings and morbid fears that they themselves have not unearthed from within their own darkness? It strips my skin of any comfort and I feel just so.... afraid. Afraid of so many things. Afraid of fucking it all up. I do not even remember those emotions, those soul crushing emotions I had felt when I was struggling to build myself back up from scratch, but I can state one thing with absolute certainty that I do not wish to ever, and I mean ever, feel that again. And it is rather absurd and naïve of me. I am aware. It is Life that is involved here. You cannot simply expect anything. All you can is throw your chest out and walk through it all until God decides you have finally been through enough, enough happiness, enough sadness, enough anger, enough of everything and pick your soul out and cradle it, soothe it. I wonder how Afterlife must be. Humans being Humans have defined it as something blissful, free of every little constraint put over us in Life. But isn't that maybe wishful thinking? But all this only matters if there truly does exist an Afterlife. Must we exist in one form or other? Can simply not existing anywhere that terrifying for our little minds to grasp? Yes, it is. To dissolve into pure oblivion after going through all of that does feel rather unfair. Makes Life even more meaningless.

Sometimes the person you do not want to be is the person you need to be.