open-ended.

There's a frail tenderness to it. No, not quite healed over. You can still see where it cuts, still feel the burn, but there's a translucent area that says something's happening.

You've been dreaming for awhile. Sure, you've lied to yourself plenty. Believed you had your eyes wide open and above all that, but the morning light casts the same shadow next to the empty side of your bed.

And you tell yourself enough stories to make it feel better, or at least make it seem better. Sometimes they are true. Yet, every night you struggle to make sense of the fables. You walk, you run, you fly, you fall. There are days you think about getting up, and there are days you just lie there waiting for the clouds to blot it out. You're only ever so human.

So today, you tell yourself this is it. No mystery nor magic. Just things as it should be, as it always were. You get lucky sometimes, but the house always wins. But everyone plays on, because there's no sense leaving early.

So, like an old friend, you embrace it. To love and to lose. To live and to die. The only difference is where you get off at.


. arigato .