It's nowhere NEAR perfect. It's been shredded about a dozen times over-- a million pieces of tape holding it together. God. Even the tape is old and worn. Specks of dirt and grime at it's edge like a reminder of how many times those same pieces of stickiness have been used to tape back those other pieces of slime.

Edges are frayed. Corners are torn. Words are scribbled left and right...and there's that long trail of harshness that's tried to be erased, appearing only as a smudge with pink shavings around it all, the shaving like small reminders of what used to be there. The paper's stained by everything. Marks of blood that we've shed from one another. Those lipstick stains that have tried to heal those same wounds. It's a disaster.

Sometimes it's hard to see the big picture anymore. You find yourself focusing on the wide amount of UGLINESS that's on it and you can't even focus on the thing behind it all. The BEAUTIFUL thing. The other day we looked at each other as if to ask. 'How much longer do you think the sticky stuff will hold all this slimy stuff together?' How much longer can this thing be torn and trashed...crumpled and shredded, before the sticky stuff falls away...and all those pieces of beautiful ugliness just blow away?

--But it's the rough draft. You need it. You need it in order to make the final thing. You need that ugly in order to make it beautiful. Nothing in this world is perfect. If it is....that's it's flaw. Perfectness is boring...mistakes are entertaining. It's nice to get distracted by those scribbles, smudges, and tears. It reminds you of the hell that you've been through. It reminds you that you can make it through some hard stuff. That you can keep going as long as that sticky stuff holds it together.

This is only our rough draft. We have all the time to perfect ourselves. We have all the time to make mistakes-- so we should make a lot of them. Cause once we make that final draft, we'll have a whole lot to look back on and remember. We'll have a whole stack of memories to smile back on and think, "Wow. That was a whole lot of ugly....but look how beautiful it made us now."