i say it feels unreal, like a dream - but only because it feels like it has been some strange dim night for the past two weeks or so. it has swept through like a dream, feels transcient and fleeting like a dream and the only way to recover is to realize that you've been forced to grow up, to realize things about yourself, to realize things about you and other people, and who they are, and where the good people are and what they look like and who is worth really hanging onto, and who felt you aren't worth hanging onto. we all need work. and i wonder if i've been choosing to not callous or bruise, thus remaining slow and half-healed, because i've realized as soft as i want to be, the world is brushing and rushing against me and that's exactly what it should be doing. i can't list everything i've realized, and sometimes i like to think that it would just be different if i had a mom to ask about it, if she would know, but then i realize that she too has been swirled into her own part - she is the chemical reaction created by light filtering through the silver and dye in photo negatives, as they are put in old projectors and shined onto the walls that i'm standing in front of, trying to manipulate her image, i want to call it a reflection, but the actual term, which is so heartbreakingly true, is that it is a projection. this aside, i want to tell people i love them, and that i miss them, and want to hold their old shirts, and childhood photos, and little things they have left behind in my arms and curl up with them in some strange sublime summer night and not even care if time is standing still or walking decidedly forward. i still say it feels unreal, like a dream, where suddenly you think you see someone but it is someone else, the cast is strangely fluid, and your secrets become known but for some reason its ok, it's all right, you don't think twice. maybe that's the trick - deciding your decisions and never questioning them, so maybe stop bending your will for the sake of others, but this would also exclude forgiving - or thus being forgiven. i think that i am living in some place between those two - accepting apologies and asking for them, simultaneously, from everyone and myself.