You can't go wrong with making a toast,
even if it's made with cheap bottled-water you poured into a red
plastic cup, because the world doesn't revolve around you and you
don't actually drink. Listen up, this is toast to the present day,
the present hour, even if you spend a few hours crying; darling, you
don't need to cry, you just need to breathe. (Trust me on this one.)
I can't recall the exact moment the universe began to hate for the
sake of hating, but I can recall the exact moment I knew we had all
the potential in the world to become something great.
The day my car battery died, I had
somewhere to be for the first time in a long time. This isn't my idea
of spectacular, and this isn't your idea of fun, but what do I know
about the inner workings of your mind? I'll tell you what I know: I
know you're obsessed with the north, and you can't stop the poetry
from bleeding out of your fingertips; words are the same as blood and
I still can't write on the walls without punishment. You created a
world of perfection, and my bus stopped there, the guards let me
through and I still don't understand why.
If you knew me the way I wish I knew
you, I think the stars would start shining brighter and I think I
might quit writing about death and lost hope, even if all the world
went dark and you were the only thing left. Sometimes my world does
grow dark, and you are the only thing left, but you don't know that
and I leave the road with skinned knees.
Your collarbones, your hair, the way
you whisper my name when you think no one can hear you. The moment
you showed me my potential and I believed you. Tuesday, and I
still hear your voice reading and re-reading – perfecting.
Is this the end of something and the
beginning of typos, errors, mistakes? I'll figure it all out one day,
but for now, I'm going to worry about my soul being taken by money
and bank statements. I'm going to worry about the possible spiders in
my closet that could kill me. I'm going to worry if I can spend my
life searching the corners of the universe trying to find the meaning
of everything, without ever finding anything. I'm going to worry
about what we could have been, because I was too big of a coward.
You win, fear. You win, anxiety. You
win, shaking hands, closed up throat, messed up fantasies. You win
this round.
But I want to remind you that this is a
toast made with cheap bottled-water, and this is a toast for the
little things that make you tick, because you wouldn't be you without
them. Here's to anxiety-ridden daydreams and trembling knees. Yes, I
know I'm messed up, but that's what makes me, me. And if you can't
accept that, don't bother pretending you 'get it'. You don't, and
that's what makes you, you.
So thank you, society. Thank you,
anxiety. Thank you, flaws. Thank you, wild hair and soft hands. Thank
you, boy full of dreams – boy who taught me everything without
really knowing it. Thank you, for making everything come together, to
make me, me.
One day, it will all make perfect sense.
Forever Yours,
Rachel.
