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This is not an essay. This is simply a collection of thoughts written down for the sake of my own sanity.

Recently I’ve been feeling like the color gray. I can give no specific reason for why the color gray, except that gray is everything and nothing. I have the possibility to be more black or more white, relative to a vast array of variables, like lighting, and surrounding color. Sometimes I wonder if I’m actually just a prism, refracting and dispersing everything I see.

Why is writing supposed to be linear? I don’t want the meaning of my writing to be easy for my writing to find. Writing is just dialogue within dialogue. Each word has a separate meaning to the writer, compared to those who view it. Who’s to say you’re reading the essay that I’m currently writing. By the time i’m finished with this it will have gone through multiple life cycles, shifting and changing until the light that makes up these words hits your corneas and coalesces in your mind.

I wonder how I exist in other’s minds. I’m a stranger to my own perception. There’s an ever expanding idea of me that’s perceived and reimagined everytime someone sees me. This makes me feel both violated and safe at the same time. In some way or another i’ll live on through shared memory and experience

Billie Holiday was playing in my room this morning. My bed was warm and I felt safe. I wake up scared a lot. I feel like i’m always late. But this morning I was on time. It was dark and the world was still asleep, and I let myself breathe. I thought about the people I’ve lost in the past year, and the new people I’ve met. I let myself shed in a way. I sloughed off the rough layers of dying memory in my head, and allowed the newer fresher ones to thrive. It was a good morning.

I visited my Grandma recently. It made me wonder why different spaces provide safety for us. Why is it that I can open my Grandmother’s door, and when the scent of aging wood and loved clothing hits my nose, I immediately ease up. Is it the arrangement of the furniture? The photos on the walls providing windows into my family’s childhoods? I think it’s simply the presence of my Grandma herself. Everything in her small house is imbued with her care. The footpath worn into the wood of her floor shows decades of stability. I love my grandma, and I love her home.

I’m struggling with the concept of labels recently. I identify as non binary, preferring to be neither he nor she, but in reality I’d like to be none of the above. I’d like to simply exist as me. Without a name or race, nationality or history. I’d to simply exist unrestricted by the constant labeling of the world.

Tomatoes disgust me. Today at work I had to make a double batch of salsa. The smell of tomatoes was stuck in my mask for hours. I hate the way the skin feels like it’s going to burst, I hate the waxiness of the light that shines on the tomatoes. I hate the feeling of my fingertips against the skin as I cut them in half. I hate the glistening guts of the plant that spill out, seeds and all. They’re horrific.

You’re probably wondering if there’s a point to all of this. That is up for you to decide. I’m not sure if I’ll ever consider this truly done. It’s a dump for all of my thoughts to be dissected and analyzed by whoever decides to read them.

I made a sculpture about a year ago. He’s just a little figure holding his knees to his chest with his eyes closed. He has such a welcoming loneliness about him. I wonder if I made him lonely. I didn’t mean to. He just looks so sad. Before he was a lump of clay. Does he like being shapeless better? Did I force him into a form he doesn’t want simply making him? Maybe him and I are more similar than I expected.

I used to write about a garden growing in my head. It was so lush and beautiful, full of these magnificent blossoms. I dreamt of taking people to my garden, swimming in the buds, and staring at the clouds. One day I’m going to grow my garden for real.

I’ve been talking to alot of people recently. Nothing serious, and it never gets anywhere. But I find myself falling in love with each person in a different way. It’s tiring

The fact that your entire knowledge of me at this current moment exists of the words i’ve written in the pages boggles me. You don’t know what I look like, or what my voice sounds like, or the way I walk, but i’m sure you still have an image of me in your head. Isn’t that wild?

I’d like a penpal.

What if we never used punctuation How do you know where a sentence ends and another begins Are you currently splitting this sentence up based on my capitalization What if I capitalize the Wrong words do you still have a Sense of organization how do You know if These are questions and Not just statements maybe you’re just assuming they are and Order of any I what Sense if forgo

I still haven’t figured out how to deal with the death of a loved one. It seems like I never actually will. When I lost them, I think I lost a part of myself that lived in them, and now theres this big hole. Sometimes the hole is really easy to avoid, but other times I don’t even register that i’m already waist deep in the whole, and am being pulled deeper. The hole changes in size and depth, but regardless it’s always there. I’m getting better at getting better. Recently I’ve been happy more often than not. The hole is still there but now I just sit at the edge and look into it. It’s a beautiful thing

I bought Carebear earrings. They make me feel like I’m a kid in a blanket fort giggling my ass off.

I’m tired. I think I might go to sleep now. Until we meet again, stranger. Thank you for letting me cross through your mind, I enjoyed the stay.