when i’m done with this bullshit, when i walk out of the room

when the weeds take over the garden

all the flowers i planted just yesterday

when they lay me down, eighty, ninety years from now

in a world i don’t recognize, in a world that’s never really changed

i hope that it mattered.

when the words i’ve written seem rotten, and old

when i get lost between the lines

when i scream into pillows, when i turn the headlights on, and cry while driving home

when i walk away for good

i hope it mattered, to someone

i hope it did some good among the bad 

i hope it made someone laugh

i hope it made them feel okay

i hope it helped, in the tiniest little way

when i’m done, when it’s over,

when there’s nothing left to say

when my shoulders ache, and my arms hang

like aching tree boughs

when i sink to my knees in despair

i hope it feels like a weight off my back

like the first breath of fall

when it’s okay, when it’s over

i hope i walk into the forest

i hope i drop my compass and i lose my string

i hope the crows eat up the breadcrumbs

that lead you back to me

i hope it wasn’t just for nothing

hope the good memories linger stronger than the bad ones

but if they don’t, then i guess that’s just

how it’s gonna be

and when i’m older, when i’m wiser

when my feet are firmly planted in the dirt,

and when my sails stretch out across the sea

i hope that for all

of my failures and inadequacies

i hope that they’ll forgive me

i hope that the memories stick around, at least a couple weeks

like a stain you can’t remove, like

like the smell of christmas morning

the first time that someone called you love

and you were smiling, the whole car ride home

i hope i tried, however poorly

i hope i fucked up, a million times

i hope i did you justice, darling

i hope that for years, you look at those flowers

and you think of me in the pouring rain

planting seeds in the dirt, and cursing it all

i hope that strangers don’t need to know my name

i hope they don’t tell me that i’m perfect, that i can never

do wrong

i hope i get lost a million times

but whatever i do, however small

i hope it matters

another drop the bucket, another cloudy day

i hope it lingers in the rain, and when it’s ready

it’ll all just wash away with the tide, and i’ll be okay

when it does

and if i did a good job

then it’s never really gone

---

I think I’ll submit this somewhere, it’s too important to me to just sit here, maybe get seen by a couple of people. This is more of an externalized (is that a word???) monologue. Something I have been saying to myself for the past couple of years, whenever everything feels hopeless, or hard, and whenever it doesn’t turn out how I planned. I hope it matters, to someone, to anyone, even if it’s only myself. I have been sick and really tired all week, but I’m starting to feel better and now suddenly have all this crazy creative energy in my head that just wants to escape, so who knows where that’s going. Maybe somewhere, maybe nowhere. I’ve been stuck at home with mostly just my thoughts, so I’ve been doing a lot of reflecting.