Wishes, Wonder, Worries, and Wants.

I blew out a candle on a cake today, in celebration of my so-soon birthday. I actually made a wish, too--a real, genuine wish.

But you wouldn't know about wishes, would you? Either you wouldn't know or you wouldn't care. Wishing isn't for the perfect people, the people like you.

Ha. What could you possibly have to wish for, anyway?

I don't want to think about you anymore. I don't want you in my head, in my dreams, in my life... I want you to leave. Kind of ironic, because before, I just wanted you to stay.

Your family was gathered today, weren't they? Gathered without you. But you wouldn't know, and you wouldn't care.

I sometimes wonder--mostly in the early hours of the morning--if you miss anything. If there are any pieces of your life that now feel like vacant holes. Can you remember me? Do you even try? Does my face bring you as much pain as yours brings me?

Part of me hopes that there's nothing you miss. I actually want you to be happy, you know. I don't want you to suffer. Making choices like the ones you've made can either end in total bliss or total sorrow; for your sake, I hope you're content where you are.

Even though you chose what I could never choose, part of me really hopes that you're at peace with it.

But then there's this other part of me--of equal size--that prays you're miserable. That you've woken up to find that your perfect world isn't as beautiful as it seemed, that the flowers have all died and the ocean's frozen over. I want you to pay for the hurt you've caused, and misery is probably the best sort of payment. It only seems fair, right?

I know these two desires are impossible to reconcile. I know that. Logic still does have some bearing on my life; I'm not entirely irrational. I can still think in this fog you've cast upon us.

That ability--to process information when no one else can--is what makes me the strong one. The glue that holds them all together. I can't fail in this, because if I were to falter, they all would come apart. This fortress that we've built is covered in weak holes, and the only thing keeping the patchwork together is me.

So thanks. Thanks for making me responsible for so many more lives. Thanks for putting me in a position I neither wanted nor deserved. Thanks for raining on so many fires.

Oh, and thanks for teaching me how to bear the weight of the world. I needed that little lesson, right? I needed to know how to carry the universe and all its cruelty. I needed to be forced just a bit more into the adult world. I needed to be shattered a little more thoroughly.

I needed it all, right? That's the only justification I can come up with. The only reason that makes any sense whatsoever.

Because I certainly didn't want any of it. Not a single bit.