# 11 || get real lost

I'll never understand why some things are so unexpectedly complicated. Foretold is never really forewarned, because emotions are fair-weather and flighty and frightening, like a butterfly or Melbourne weather. Lately life seems to be: knowing what you need to do, and even with all the courage and character you could imagine, the right actions (and re-actions) seem near impossible to perform with sincerity and grace. There's a space around here, locking my thoughts and ego inside some kind of bulletproof bubble. It's suffocating, it's stifling. Empathy and oxygen blend together outside in the air that I'm not allowed to breathe, but I'm trying, I'm trying, I'm trying and defying and I'm trying and I'm dying. It's lonely in this cage but the solitude is strangely nourishing. I could stay in here forever, maybe, but I don't want to. Suck up this sorrow, sweetheart, and pray it keeps you satiated so that you need nothing else. No company, no sustenance, no nothing. Just sunlight and pennies and the occasional cup of tea.

Lately I feel like a misplaced jigsaw piece, while you're all that perfect puzzle piece every situation was looking for. How do people seem to melt into every moment like a teaspoon of honey in a tangy cup of tea? I don't like being attached to things. Routine commitments are nice, but as much as I love order and good habits, there's something magic about spontaneity and the good kinds of surprises. I'm trapped in this routine of emotions and it's time to move towards something shinybright&new, it's time to set myself free.

# 10 || jump over the (super)moon

V

VI

VII

(en route to Thailand or Morocco or something, c. 1999)

VIII

lately i have a weird thing for construction sites. they're like cygnets or something; ugly but full of potential. imagine making something from nothing ! i'll never see, know, taste, touch, smell, hear or do it all - but that's hardly going to stop me from trying. the only thing to do is move and keep moving, i'll never learn everything i need to if i stay in one place. is courage infinite? and how many times can i let myself break into a zillion little pieces before i'm too scattered to humpty-dumpty myself back together again?

(you'll never know if you don't try!)

i need to articulate everything, always. even if it's nonsense. the worst thing would be to forget. details are important. remember how you felt and what you saw and ate and where you messed up or what you did right and what you wore and how the weather was and all the things you could hear and the path you took to get exactly where you were. i'm 22 years, 6 months and 1 week old today. it's strange to feel a certain way right now and reminisce of a moment (or many, rather) when everything was a violet kind of grey. the best part of it is that i'm made up of moments and thoughts and feelings and memories, so it was never a waste. i needed to be soaked by every thunderstorm in order to wake up and walk to where and who i am right this very minute.

x

# 9 || Dear ______,

"She was extending a hand that I didn’t know how to take, so I broke its fingers with my silence."

— Extremely Loud, Incredibly Close, Jonathan Safran Foer


I

how, amid all your intelligence and imagination, did you let yourself become this way? what drives you against change and honesty and integrity? i see it must be easy to live the way they do and be the way they are, but don't you want to be more? i'm not talking about success or satisfaction but some kind of hazy serenity and harmony within yourself. the kind that helps you fall asleep at night - it's your ticket to Neverland. the fact that we're all inherently selfish can't really be helped because we do all live inside our solemn skulls - but there really is a lot of room for perspective and compassion, i promise. c'est l'un de ces lettres d'amour bizarres que tu ne sera jamais lire, parce que nous étions les condamnés cerfs dans les phares dès le début. if i don't start to stop right this very instant, this rollercoaster might very well be the end of me.

II

III

IV

to be continued . . .