where the wildflowers grow

[Cynthia]

"That's silly, a book to write down what I think in? I can keep it all in my head, can't I?"

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Invasive thoughts, ones that come without warning, without mercy. These are the things that visit in the middle of the night, the things that keep a person awake as the most bitter of ideals can cause them to reel away from previous thought processes. There's no need to lock it away or hide what's been written down among the journal resting on her nightstand:

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You know, it was never okay for me to do the things that you do. Playing pretend like some people do, it was never something that I could bring myself to. I learned something today, though-- I can't consider family my everything. This unbreakable bond that people seem to have with their families, letting them walk all over them, letting them trample you because you're too nice. People hold you to a higher standard, you're not allowed to have moments of meltdown because you're supposed to be the so-called thread that holds it all together.

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I'm tired of being a thread. A walkway. A second thought. I'm tired of being there for people, defending their best interests when in my greatest times of need, the people I desperately look for are nowhere to be found. Or they're the ones that are actually striking me down. Where's the love that you show your friends? The love that you express for people that would leave you on a whim, whereas I've been there always?

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It is very strange to me.

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If I change the way I think now, people will claim that they always saw it coming. If I remain as I am, people will keep trying to slip into what good graces that I have just because they know they can glean something off of it. These people are very opportunistic, you know? We can use labels, we can say whatever we want, but the fact of the matter remains: The only person that you can ever truly trust is yourself, but I can't trust myself either. I've always said things for the comfort of other people and I don't know why. I promise to help in things that don't even pertain to me. Dad told me to pick and choose what I feel is right. Mom didn't want me to leave this place to begin with.

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I said I wanted to learn about the Vale, connect with nature, the spirits. Experience Druidism, make beauty in the world where there was nothing but the feeling of bleakness. I wanted to have a real connection, be more than just 'this generation's teacher'. When people walk up to me, I didn't want it to just be a conversation about my holy magic, about the inner-light. Yet, they asked me about it so much that I ran out of original ways to show someone how to start.

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I can't do it now. I can't take on these experiences. I haven't felt like myself for a long time now. I'm starting to wonder if I'm forgetting who I used to be and what I wanted myself to become for this feeling of emptiness, this sensation of sadness. It's been months now. I don't know how to help myself. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know.

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I can't do anything now.

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No one else would step up, so it had to be me. I'm the one who had to have a part of me cut out like this.

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But it's fine, right? As long as it isn't happening to these other darling, sweet personalities of this world. It's fine if it happens to me, because I'm supposed to be built for it. It is fine. It is okay. These people are allowed to bring all these bad things upon themselves, and I'm supposed to play clean-up crew for their mistakes.

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But... That's the thing: What are you going to do when I'm no longer there to save you from yourself?

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"I can't keep it all in my head. I can't fix it all. I feel wrong, why do you say this is the way I should feel?"

[Cynthia]

"Beneath dirt,
my skin blooms.
Nightshade, oh... mother we are luminary.
Doves where nothing flies,
his hair river, reeds full.
Moon every night,
he coaxes spring from inside of me."
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The very same journal is left flipped open, the pages falling past some nonsensical entries-- day to day things, but the following entry harbors marks of ink that could very well pressure through the current page to the next:

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I don't feel sorry.

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When it comes to uninspired apologies, I've never felt like accepting them. I don't think it's wrong of me, either. If you are willing to bare your soul to me and it is direct venom to my standing, I do not think that I have to play nice with you. I don't know if I should exactly feel these things I do, but there's no changing the fact that they are there.

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When I told someone that I'd whip another person in the mouth and take away their ability to speak their mess in my face, it was a warning to who I was speaking to too. I never thought I'd be capable of making sense of actions like that, but here I am. The sense of protection I felt so adamantly seems to all but have dissolved with people taking away from me. Each hand in the pot has felt like little parts of me have been picked apart. The charity I felt is gone. The love I've felt for people that I do not know is gone.

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Feeling that rage, the way that it ached for someone to know that they'd never get their hands on something they seemingly sought after so hard felt good. To know that someone felt so powerless that they came to claim they'd conquest Esshar for what I did to them... It is bizarre, is it not?

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Maybe if it had been a year or two ago, I'd have given it back. I would've felt awful in my red beating heart.

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That's growth though.

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And when I look in the mirror, I can tell you one thing:

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I love who I'm becoming. For me, myself, and I. I've spent too much time being sad over it. Too much time trying to resist.

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Now, it's time to do a little spring cleaning.