A ball of raw and open nerves in the shape of a young woman.

I'm going to tell you my reality, in hopes of showing you where the flesh opens up and the shiny,  bullshitting mechanics really end.

It's hard and it's ridiculous because I'm going to tell you what I'm made of.

The first thing I'm burdened with really isn't considered a negative in most circles. It's unconditional love. I have unconditional love for all of the people in my life.

But unconditional love turns into worry (the worry that the people you would give up everything for would likely never do the same), and worrying turns into stress (stress that you're spending too much time worrying about the thoughts and actions of others), and stress makes you bitter (bitter that you have this burden of a personality trait, bitter that everything about you is sensitive).

How so neatly some people can fold up their thoughts, their dreams, their fears, and after topping them with a bow and curling the ribbon, professionally slam dunk them into a trash bin. My thoughts permeate straight through to every cell in my body. Even the genes that lay dormant. And they're not flushed out until some utter cliched enlightenment comes into tremendous realization. And even then, their half-life remains. There's never really any waste.

I also own a brain that never stops transmitting new and unusual ways to either upset or excite me.

I liken myself to a small planet that has a million different satellites orbiting around its atmosphere. They're always switched on and connected, but raw, unencrypted data doesn't flow through until someone on the ground hurriedly types in the algorithms into some master command center. That happens a few thousand times a day, though. And I'm pretty sure that the guy typing in the codes has sore, exhausted fingers and severe Carpal Tunnel Syndrome. I'm just waiting for him to type in the nuclear launch codes. Lord knows that satellite was the first launched into orbit.

The only time my brain stops working through the 1,000,000,000 channels and fucking wormholes of thoughts that it has are when I'm asleep. 

Oh, anxiety. You are the third, yet the 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th-200th thing that I am made of.

Fuck you. Fuck you for ending friendships, for destroying relationships, for getting in the way, for screwing with the work I really love, and for always making me feel that I'm never quite good enough. For not letting me put my hands around life's neck and command that, "YOU HAVE TO GROW UP, AND YOU HAVE TO DO IT NOW. YOU'RE A QUARTER OF A CENTURY OLD, AND YOU'VE GOT NOTHING TO SHOW FOR YOURSELF. MAKE SOMETHING. MAKE ANYTHING. GIVE A SHIT." But I'm never anything. I am only ever a ball of raw and open nerves in the shape of a young woman. I am ball lightning, I am unexplainable. I am the phenomena of not giving a shit, yet always giving a fuck.

But I am also hope.

I am full of so much hope that it's brimming to the top-wait, it's already splashed over, and I'm begging for it to drown me. Fill my lungs with this hope, let me feel it with every breath that I take. The residue is candy-coating my insides. Only when the fire that burns within me gets hot enough does it melt, and only then can I set myself on fire.

In the meantime, I'll be here.
Waiting for that flood of hope.
Reading a good novel in bed.
Drinking through my huge assortment of coffee and teas.
Dissecting film after film.
And being.