mostly nonsense

CCXXIV. The thing about everything

Romanticizing is easy when you’re young and hopeful and believe a little too hard that everything will still work out. That the cheap apartment with its bare, dirty walls and low-ceiling attic bedroom and absentee living room will be the birthplace of your work of genius. That the degree you are paying for and working for and fighting for and fighting over will lead to something other than bursting into rough, ugly tears in front of the accountant in the pressed suit who made all of the choices you should have. That the smoke slip-curling between your lips won’t turn your lungs to mirrors of the dead: two grandmothers, a grandfather, three great-aunts and -uncles. Family, when they cut you open.

But then again,

There is nothing beautiful about the struggle to stay on this planet. Feeling fine is dull, sure, but no one misses the perpetual feeling that, just maybe, this sunset could be the last. Some nights will be worse than others, they’ll mean one hand in the crook of an elbow and a cigarette in the other, anchoring yourself to the steady pulse beneath someone else’s scratchy wool sweater.

“Every extra day we get with you is just a gift with purchase”

Let’s agree to stick around, one way or another.