half a life
I don't know how you measure being messed up. There's no scale for that. Or there is and I ain't got it, or I got it and don't know how to use it. I don't know which one's worse.
I'm eighteen, almost nineteen, and I'm finishing the open high school program, which is basically high school for people who didn't go to high school. Already paid my university deposit. That sounds like something. Sounds like progress. But I don't know if that's actually moving forward or if it's just the bare minimum that should've happened years ago and I'm counting it as a win 'cause I ain't got other wins. My room is a mess, I'm making like 250 bucks a month from a remote gig, left a job where I was pulling 750, and now I'm finna work at a call center. I shower. I keep myself alive. I don't know if that counts or if the fact that I'm even saying it already says everything.
My mom was gonna trade me for drugs. That's not a metaphor. And that's what I grew up with, trying to want freedom, trying to want things, when what I should've done at thirteen was just grab a shovel 'cause that's what there was. I didn't. I wanted stuff instead. I don't know if that was a mistake or if wanting things at thirteen is normal or if I just didn't have the right to normal.
There's a version of being alive that I don't know. Having someone, wasting time, being happy, stuff I guess happens when you actually exist out there. I don't know if I missed it or if it was never mine. I don't know if I'm allowed to miss things I never had. Complaining is lowkey all I do, that and cry, so you'd think I'd be good at it by now. But idk, maybe I'm not even doing that right.
I don't sleep at night. Nights just happen and I watch them happen. I don't know if this is a story or a manifesto or just noise from someone who can't rest and doesn't know why. Something in me keeps going. I don't know if that's good.