Kathy Brown

Perhaps it isn’t the absence of the person that destroys you, but the absence of everything they take with them.

You don’t know what their absence feels like; they’re there beside you, even when they’re not. They’ve always been there, from the very first moment your eyes locked.

But here’s the deal, sweet stranger. You deserve to be the protagonist of your own wonderful, bizarre, terrifying little life.

Discover a piece of the world together. Get naked. Build forts. Chase sunsets.

That the beautiful words we’ve embroidered into each other’s hearts will fray, that we’ll render them meaningless, like the air between us was never heavy with longing for that next perfect sentence.

Like so many others who have sailed those dark seas, I was actually ashamed of it. Hopeless, but not helpless, as I so fiercely believed.  Overwhelming, internal agony. The cleanest dirty little secret I’ve ever kept.

The more we compare ourselves to others, the more we diminish the good within us. The elusive person you’re jealous of is as flawed and fragile as you are.

How do you live like you’re dying? The people I’ve met have lead me to a conclusion that I will strive to rewrite. You can’t. Unless it’s actively happening to you.

Love gives one human being the potential to damage another beyond repair, and sometimes, it’s effortless.

*Involuntary crying episode in toilet*