i hope you are proud of me
for my mind has become a haphazard collection of half-finished letters
addressed to you
none of which would really suffice
yet they linger in my thoughts
like the old boxes in everyone’s attic
collecting years’ worth of dust

but still
i hope you are proud of me
i wish i could rip my words in half
and erase any last reminder of my flaws
but i am afraid i cannot
for they are etched into my bones
and for that i am sorry

i hope you can forgive me
life has been short of cooperative
every second wasted searching for the lesser of two evils
yet to no avail
i wasn’t living in a dystopian world
instead it was my interpretation of it that was menacing
and for that i hope you can forgive me

i want to tell you to find happiness and peace
but that would be naïve of me
but instead
i hope that you can learn to love the graveyard
i hope that you will learn to fly above it with a sense of tranquility
for if you walk through the piles of shattered glass with your head high
your feet won’t bleed

i hope you will learn to forgive your family
i wish i could just hand you a map
but for that i would be naïve
remember that every pretty flower has thorns
but if you walk through fire with your head high
your body won’t burn.