small seas of thought around smaller islands of fear and all of the things that you can never be sure of. a thousand loves cast aside, gathered 'round a long road of vicious rocks, the sharpest stones and no shoes, never anything to lift them high enough to escape the pain. this is blind-jumping from a cliff, crossing the street with your eyes on your toes. these are risks cast upon us by something larger than anything in a human thought, perhaps a calling of fate or a god no one ever really trusts.

half-steps, time to prepare yourself for walking alone, the absence of comfort in someone else's arms, no fingers sliding between your own. the immense heart ache at the thought of unknown flesh as your only consolation.

how to take your heart out of it long enough to learn the things you will find yourself questioning still, years later.

as a young girl in a giant bath tub, hair strewn about in a frothy soap, the scent of small green apples ingrained in her thoughts. the remembrance of the comfort only a grandmother's fingers can bring and all of the scents, sounds, places-people-things attached to every fucking memory anyone will ever have. wondering how to ever live with any sort of certainty. how to breathe without a drawn curtain or a radio station stealing it all away in a broken second.

all of this for something i have dreaded my entire life.

all of this to be alone.