...not as much as the way her god damn voice sounds

 i haven't felt this good about anything in a long time.

i didn't get much sleep last night, but that's alright

i'm going to do better this time.

you won't find objective truth in a final rhyming couplet.

i made it.

a step you can't take back

i'm moving this month.
in a couple weeks.
i still haven't
packed anything. done any of the shit i need for my car except the windshield, that my dad paid for.
all i did was get boxes, and make plans.

empty boxes, leaning against my closet door.
if you ask me what i'm going to do, i will give you my detailed long term step-by-step plan.
if you ask me what i've done, i'll shrug.

i'm running out of time.
i'm running out of time and i'm allowing myself to because i'm scared.

i am so fucking scared.

i don't want to come back.

everyone thinks i can.

everyone is so fucking certain but they've never seen how bad i can fuck everything up.

i really don't want to fuck up again. i don't want to come back. i want the move to be the thing that tells me who i am. i want austin to be the place that feels like home. i want this to be the last time i see my mom again until my dad's funeral.

i don't know that this is what's going to make me happy. i could never know that. but i know that getting away from albuquerque will make it a lot easier to be happy.

which is why failure is not a fucking option.

i am not coming back.

sometimes i'm awake thinkin' about fuckin' things up for myself again.

it's been a minute.

nearly three years since the last time i posted on here.

i still come back to read this sometimes.

i guess i should update.

i'm almost 23.

i don't talk to my mom anymore.

i'm not a boxer. i know how to box, but that dream never got off the ground. i'd still like to get into it seriously sometimes, but in the last three years i learned i have a huge problem with sticking to things.

i failed chasing the idea of being an EMT, a firefighter, anything in between.

i learned to exist in the moment. it's where i work best. planning was never my strong suit.

i don't know if i'm happier. i don't know what 'happy' means.

i think i'm in a better place than i used to be. i'm still fucked up, but i'm getting better. or at least, that's what people tell me. i'm not a good judge of myself.

i'm still learning how to treat people i care about. i'm trying to be more careful with my words. it doesn't always work. (i'm sorry jade.)

i've become more confident, i think. i handle social situations better. i still prefer to keep my nose in my phone and my thoughts to myself but i'm not afraid of talking to people.

i'm protective. i know this about myself now. i guess i always knew it, kind of, but recent events have brought it to the forefront of my attention. it's cliche to say it but i refuse to let anyone make my friends feel like shit.

i've been on a plane, now. it was cool. because of that, i'm planning on moving to austin. for the first time in my life, i have savings. i'm trying not to spend too much of it. sometimes i'm good at that, sometimes i spend six hundred bucks on a handgun.

but i told myself i couldn't have the three hundred dollar shotgun so, y'know, baby steps.

i don't know how much of that is self-sabotage and how much of it is me just being bad at handling money.

but i know i've never let myself get this close to success before.

i'm terrified. i'm terrified that rose is going to back out for some reason or other. i'm terrified that i won't be able to do it. i'm terrified that i'll have to come back to albuquerque with my tail between my legs.

my dad told me i'm a glutton for punishment, and i'm realizing right now as i write this that he didn't mean from her.

i'm my own punishment.

and i've been trying to break that habit for years.

i don't know what made me want to write. i'm not particularly sad, or angry. quarantine has left me with more time to think than act, i think.

maybe three years of shit is just too much to hold onto without putting it somewhere.

i just hope i'm better than the person i think i am.

I'm finding clarity in kerosene.

i destroyed you tonight.
i ripped you to shreds and burned you.

all that you are, all your poems, the one you wrote about me, then one you stayed up on skype with me to finish.

i shredded the heart of who you are and set a match to it.

you're not part of me anymore.

i fucking hate you.

i hope you rot.

i'm sick of you having this control over me when you're not even here.

fuck you.

i destroyed you tonight and i'm going to keep destroying you, over and over and over again until there's nothing left for me to destroy.

no more memories to incinerate.

just thought i'd let you know you're dead to me.

Manic pixie dream girl.

I've seen a lot of things, recently, about the idea of the "Manic Pixie Dream Girl"

I had one, once.
The kind of girl who fit that archetype perfectly.
The girl with dyed hair that smelled too heavy of cigarette smoke.
Leather jackets and car rides to nowhere.
The girl who gives you a handmade journal full of date ideas and songs to listen to.
"These songs will change your life."
"These songs will save you."
"I will change your life."
"I will save you."

Y'know, that girl.
The girl who picks a tragic romance novel she enjoys and assigns you as the male lead and herself as the female lead. I guess I'm Park, now.

Too often, however, in media, the "manic pixie dream girl" character only serves to help the generic white boy #5 protagonist grow as a person and is all too often swept to the sidelines against the protagonist's journey of self-discovery that wouldn't be possible without this character.

I suppose that's true in my case, too.
Though, you don't often hear of the "manic pixie dream girl" being the antagonist in a story.

She is in mine.

Eleanor was the character she related to. And sure, y'know, if you wrote down a detailed description of that girl, she'd fit perfectly.

Park was me. The only thing I had in common with him? We both liked comics. I don't listen to the Smiths. I don't wear eyeliner.

Instead, she assigned me someone she would've rather been with. A mold, to shape me in. And since I already liked comics, maybe that meant it would be a little easier to fit me into that mold.

But I had already made myself out of my old mold. So instead of finding a new piece of clay, or someone already cut from that mold, she broke me.

Bit by bit until I fit her mold of her dream guy. Crumbled into a powder to fit this image of a guy that would make someone proud of her for dating a "good guy."

I wasn't that guy. But she didn't care. I was finding my own way through life, and she didn't like it.

I wasn't the kind of person her parents would like, and she wasn't the type to rebel. Instead of passing me up, like she should've, she took me. And when I wouldn't fit, she made me love her. Made me love her so much, that she could leave me and I would change any way she wanted me to so that I would get her back.

I never made it into that guy her parents would be proud of her for, I guess.

Which is weird, because, her parents loved me.

But I guess she didn't.