The drops settled heavily on the glass. My skin pricked as the sun rubbed uncomfortably up my arm. The night's chill slowly settling down, drawing itself into the clamminess of the air as the summer's morning sun warmed the world too quickly. I was lost. In that cast iron chair on the porch, chilled by the dawn, I soaked in the sunrise. Watching another day fall over my small, unruly stretch of grass, gravel and brush was comforting, in a way. It was the regularity of it, the promise, the constancy of change. Time bloomed forward effortlessly, simply. I always felt like I was meeting face to face with a deep and beautiful truth when I stayed up this long, waiting out the darkness. Waking up to it was never this way, I was always too dazed with sleep to really feel anything other than the clocks ticking away. The urgent push to move, to ready, to leave. No, it was different this way - like we were equals, like I'd kept in stride with time. I even sort of loved the tiredness that came a few hours later. The true weight of sleep always fell so heavily after these mornings. The crushing force of it reassuring me I really am human. I loved giving in to that feeling.

I'm not a mother I'd like to have.

My mother isn't who she used to be. I can't trust her anymore. She's letting the wrong voice in.

My father is so fatigued. You would be too.

My grandmother is blinded by hate and lies. She'll live forever, but I'll never really know her.

My brother may not survive over there. It really wouldn't be fair to him, he deserves so much more out of life... I wish he knew that.

My friends are thin. All we talk about is how we should get together more. That's hardly having anything in common. One of them, I feel like I never talk to her unless I've got something informative to talk about. I feel awkward and am overly aware of my elbows and how congested the skin on my face feels. I feel sick when I talk to her, because I know we probably aren't friends. I just need a friend so badly, but can't step out of this shell anymore.

I feel like I'm always reaching.

I feel remarkably sad that some of you are so far away from me, physically or emotionally.

I'm sorry for being a bad person. Perhaps I'm just bad at being a person.