you. [8.2.09]

i watched you today, as i watch you every day, and i know you’re wearing thin. but you gloss another layer of lies over your life and pursue the impossible until your feet bleed and your head aches. and i ache, too. i ache for you. oh i know you too well, with your stone heart and your lead eyes that only fire glares of desperation. and i know your despairs and i know that when you laugh it isn’t real, because i can hear the emptiness, echoing inside your skull and down to your toes and wrapping you up. you know it wasn’t always this, it wasn’t always this way. but i know every word you’ve said that brought you here, and how you don’t realize who you are or where you’ve gone. and you wake up one day and wonder what happened. and it’s easy, it’s too easy to blame it all on the past or on the present. and to use it as an excuse for the future. so you do. over and over. and i watch you decompose and fall apart, and it isn’t delicate. it isn’t beautiful. it is terrible. but you’re too afraid, you’re too afraid to be vulnerable, so you box it all up. too many times i watch you bury the pain inside yourself, and it sits like a stone in your heart and presses down on your stomach. and you try to ignore the pain but sometimes it isn’t ignorable, and sometimes you hurt so bad it’s physical. i know about the times you lay on the floor and listen to the same songs over and over and try to force yourself to just be. but it’s not possible anymore, because you’re stuck. you’re trapped in your expectations for yourself, and the overwhelming magnitude of your feelings. and it’s a reflex, it’s a safety thing, to keep yourself all wrapped up with no room to breathe. you cram your life into a little box and say that it’s all fine. but i know about the times you cry and the times you hurt, the days when you don’t eat because it somehow fills the emptiness in yourself. and you fill your days with something, anything, to keep from feeling. you’re splitting at the seams but you run from here to there and you refuse to acknowledge it. and you won’t be weak. you won’t. you can’t. you don’t even know how to let go, you only know how to take more and more upon yourself, from others. and built so high your back breaks. but that isn’t the way it’s supposed to be. it’s not.
i could tell you so many things. i could tell you that it will be all right, but you will call me a liar. i could hold you in my arms and cry with you and it would be better for a moment, but the next moment everything would crash back down on you. and i can’t lift it, i can’t lift it for you. but i can tell you that today is grace. that awakening this morning was grace. and you can think of all the places that you’ve been and the things that you have lost, but more importantly you can think of where you are now and all the things that you have gained. and it will make you stronger. and you will make it through tonight. because tonight is not a war, tonight is redemption. these days are not battles, they are all covered in grace. and you don’t have to try to be strong, because there is more. and i’ll tell you that you are loved. and you can believe it sometimes, because there are times when you can feel love, almost tangible. in new music and hugs, long conversations. in laughter. and all of this is grace, and all of it is a miracle. and all of those little things build up higher, and you can feel a hand in yours, and you can hear that whisper, ‘it’ll be all right, it’ll be okay.’ and some nights, you can believe it. but oh, when you don’t believe it, when you can’t feel it, when you only wish to see the hand you hear so much about, when your faith begins to break, i will always remind you of redemption. of todays and tomorrows and forgiveness. and my favorite word, of hope, of hope. and it’s real. it’s real. and you will make it.