Sometimes, I don't know how to still my pounding heartbeat. Sometimes, I can hear it echo from my chest to my ears, and I feel my palms moisten and my mind go blank. Then fear kicks in. But I always wonder, why am I so afraid to live? Or, if I'm not afraid to live, does that mean I'm afraid to die? That always becomes irrelevant though, because even when I am afraid, I always try to bury it, to push it aside like a windstorm, and I always try being strong. Strong enough to prove I can control myself, but instead of caring about whether I actually can or not, I am, in reality, willingly thrusting myself into a wall that blocks me from deluding myself into my own version of what hell is, so I can prove to them that I'm good enough.
Then I think, it doesn't matter to them the negative things you've done, but how you've turned out afterward is what they care about. But do they understand that even though I know I've made it out, the cuts and bruises I made on those journeys still linger as scars? That the memories still play behind my eyes and that I can still feel the same pain I felt those nights I laid awake recalling my fear, replaying the stories over and over again like a broken record. But unlike records, I can't be fixed and the memories can't be replaced. But I can be helped, and I can be taped to stand back up again on my own two feet while leaning against the people who provided me with the strength to keep moving.
Then after I'm given the support to stand up again, I think of the people I've hurt, how I hurt them by letting my knees grow weak and letting them give out underneath me. And I think back to the expressions on their faces, and how I saw their shoulders sag as if gravity became too heavy to withstand and how their hands shook from the anxiety I bestowed upon them. And I looked at them in the eyes and regretted that I ever let my emotions out of my control and that I had let them destroy me, and in turn, destroy them. I wondered, would they ever be able to forgive me? For I not only let my weaknesses flood my shaking bones, but I also let those I love suffer from what had befallen me.
That being said, was it worth it to be afraid of reality? Or maybe it was never about fear, but about the ability to forgive and forget. To never forget but to accept the affects of what others have done to me and what I've done to myself. Would they be willing to empathize one last time for the sake of ending what can't be changed from the past, so they can sympathize with those other than myself in the future? To give them a break from the desperation that clings to people who haven't yet embraced their true name, to help others more in need of a shoulder to cry on or a hand to hold theirs? Would they be willing to trust me with my mind and the power I wield with it? I have indeed revitalized myself with what it means to live by not looking at the bad, but by looking at the truth.
And in conclusion, can they forgive me for slowly accepting my mistakes, and for the misfortune I accidentally brought upon them?