I woke up and it's three am. Too many thoughts in my head again and I feel strange finding myself somewhere all too familiar. I saw the most beautiful man today. Like an angel on oil and testosterone with the distracted carelessness of someone who either knows they ooze sex appeal or could care less, the latter being more likely and altogether more appealing. Sometimes I feel oh so superior until I take a look around and remember that I just want to scream. I could be graduating from college with a masters degree in two years time had I taken the road more traveled but I decided that distraction was more rewarding than direct fulfillment.

I'm listening to Late Night Alumni and the sounds are just easing enough to offer enough to let these words slip haphazardly though my fingers and onto something equally less tangible. "Some things make more sense than others" Some times, the obvious needs to be stated; the direct truth giving something that simple understanding lacks. Even with the fear of digression aside.

I wish I had my old friends here because there are so many people who's words I wish I could steal but I can't because they probably no longer linger where melo meets drama.

Insomnia slips it's fingers into my skin softly enough to bring about a bad dream just long enough to stir me from random tangents into di(s)orted thoughts.

I don't even remember why I started this today and I can't stand that I always seem to finish just shy of what I really meant to say. I tell myself I am eloquent but I know that my words are really just this side shy of those like Zoe Trope, and others to common to mention.

I feel like I'm all of fourteen again but with none of the confidence of being so young and out of control. I wonder why it's so easy to tell stories of what used to be when it's just you and me but when I come here I stutter over simple sentences and can barely remember where to go let alone start or end.

Yes, I am still here.

I just don't know where to begin and I feel like the last four years of confessions, accusations, distractions, statements, obituaries, and sentiments are nothing but pieces in that search of the beginning I never really had or found. Maybe I will release all these misplaced inquiries and discarded searches after the fact is found, stated, and released.

At least, that's what I hope for.

Title: Fragments (?)

I quit smoking three days ago. This time for real. I don't know why I'm telling you this but a part of me thinks that it's simply in place of something better to say. I do feel free though. More free than I have in a long time, like I broke some kind of chain I didn't really realize was there until I found rust on my hands and links on the ground. It feels good. It feels fucking good.

There's an end to a seven year story.

I started thinking about all the people who used to mean so much to me that I haven't had in quite some time. All the football jocks and wrestling fucks that I should have fucked with in any and every way for more than I did, all the first hand fantasies created out of a sense of sorrow and self something, the kind sparked by desire for that just out of reach frustration. I still wonder who was and who wasn't what I thought. I know that it really doesn't matter but sometimes I think it would be nice to know what could have been, no difference made aside.

Some people spend their whole life looking for closure, others make their own.

I've had to do just that. You know what, that's ok because no matter what you do in life the only thing you're left with when you leave is your memories and the only thing you really leave is the memories others have of you. So go ahead, live, and let me steal all of your memories so I can feel fulfilled. I never got to play in the sandbox and that's probably why I'm still standing but I can't rid myself of this Felicity complex and I wish I had someone to send tapes to back and forth. Talk to me. I want to hear your voice and laugh about how you watched the football team practice some obscure October day when the snow had tried to fall but forgotten how leaving only frost instead. They were shirtless and I thought the steam coming from their mouths was beautiful and for once I really wasn't afraid because they were too far away for it to matter, and I was too far from home, just another stranger everyone assumed belonged.

Later on but when exactly unimportant I was an hour away from where I had been and watching a scene of what I wish could be; students in a library and frat parties at school far enough north to get Canadian snow storms and have corn fields for miles. I know I would never be able to handle it long term, the distance and desertion from the suburbs but for I felt nostalgia scream and I felt too accepted to recoil. It's everything I've ever wished was but I've been through too much for it to be for me.

As much as they say those on the outside don't belong it's those in the middle who have been though too much that are really screwed having nowhere to really go or anyone to really understand. They fit into each part just enough to not quite fit.

I'm not a dropout but I'm not a success story either. I'm me. I'm struggling every day to find a foothold in something sturdy enough to take a leap of faith from. I'm trying to be the best I can while wanting people to judge me and find favor.

I want it all to matter.