Postcards with Hidden Meanings

Feet above this stratospheric cloud
I will take a walk above your eastern harbor town
A chance for peace and you and me in sight
An offering to heal a wound and make it all seem easier tonight

I can't tell which way to go
You might as well be on your own
You take me high And bring me low
I miss you more than you could ever know

Just above the rooftop where I live
I wish you were below my feet, filling my room in
Taking breathes, exhaling into me
Blonde hair running through my hands and pale white skin sweating on my sheets

I was never one for holding onto anything
I bet I can't hold onto too long, I may just weigh you down
I am far beyond where I thought I would be,
Far below and Far from home

Far beyond where I thought I would be
The mystery inside her eyes is still haunting me
I want to find a postcard and tell her what I've found
I want to say I love you, but I am not sure
I even know how

Partial Introspection on Past Errors and Future Corrections

I use the saying “you can’t choose your family” like it’s a broken record… but I keep playing it anyways because it’s true… I never got to choose my parents or my brother or my aunts or uncles… I was just born into this mess of a life.  The sympathy that I get from people when they hear minor details about my family is unwanted… I don’t want you to feel bad for me.  There’s nothing to feel bad about.  This stuff?  It’s already happened… an apology isn’t going to fix it… sympathy isn’t going to fix it… it just is what it is.  I live with it every day and I’m finally starting to be fine with it… so you should be, too.  At this moment in time I’m twenty-six years old and I’ve finally gotten to choose my family.  My friends are my family… so stop feeling bad.

This has been my first semester in Graduate School: a whirlwind of self-discovery and personal missteps and life lessons I thought I’d already learned.  Somewhere in there I lost my way.  I stepped away from everything that I had built up and decided to try to be a new me… it was a mistake I shouldn’t have made.  Instead of playing everything “close to the vest” I opened up too much to people… so much that I may never recover the privacy fence I usually employ.  I stressed myself out to the point that my brain split off and hyper-focused on something I wish it never had… but it’s too late to turn that clock back… the damage has already been done… any attempt at repairs would be a waste… it’d be futile.

My patience was tested… and it bit me in the ass.  I repeatedly gave second chances to someone I now know was undeserving… who was continually and horrifically homophobic (towards me/about others) on many occasions.  The final straw was when it was implied that I can be cured… as if I have an affliction.  This idea that there is something wrong with me is something I’ve been dealing with it feels like all my life… but it’s because of people like him… and my mother… and my other family members… that I feel this way.  They’ve engrained it in my head that I’m flawed… I’m broken… I’m worthless… They’ve engrained self-hate into my way of thinking.  I hear their voices echoing these words in my head over and over and I just hate myself… I hate myself so much I can’t stand it.  But there’s nothing wrong with me… there never has been… and I need to start accepting that instead of doubting it.

I’ve been trying to remember that moment when everything changed… When I went from being the kid that I was to what I am now… I’m specifically referring to my germ phobia and anxiety and OCD but there are other things too… and all of these things were just there one day in full force and I’m not sure when it is exactly that happened.  I’m not even really sure if I can move on from it or if I’m just going to have to learn to live with it in the same way I live with the fact that my family is shitty… I'm just not sure what to do.