I will turn 26 this year, and what a terrifying thing that is. 

I will turn 26 this year, and yet I have no idea if I am where I’m meant to be. Sure, I am not where I wish to be, but how can I know that if I don’t know where I should be? We are abundant in our angst, yet certain of our path. We fought so deeply to surface briefly, only to find our questions remain unchanged. Our hands grow rougher, though the soil we sift through remains the same.

I will turn 26 this year, with no clue what I have to my name. A collection perhaps, of bits and pieces from an effort towards a half decent life. Though what good are pieces that do not make up a meaningful whole? The same rooms wear the same cracks. The lush meadows leave us more empty. The same emptiness that seeks to sell us the idea that we are but crumbs, dust, and a hundred loose ends. 

I will turn 26 this year, with no idea if I have seen that much. Though my eyesight worsens and blurs, my body shifts the tiredness of one that has worn heavy truths. We still move, we still sustain, but it feels as if part of us longs to spend more time in our nightmares, than awake and chasing our dreams.

I turn 26 this year, feeling so alone in rooms with many people. They whisper of the immaturity within my eyes, yet I find only boredom meeting theirs. They dawn their righteousness like oversized t-shirts, and boast of emotional intelligence they have yet to display. Their hearts weep of a virgin spirit still unbroken by the horrors beyond. But is this truly boredom? Could I be what I claim they cannot?

Or are these the bitter thoughts of my own isolated madness? 

I turn 26 this year, to finally fear being forgettable. I disgust at my loneliness, though I find most peace outside all else. I feel a pull to join the masses, though their philosophies I repulse. I feel a pull to join the masses, but my efforts to do so are met with painful shoves. I feel a pull to join the masses, but only outside them have I ever felt my own. Then what is this voice inside me, that draws me to the crowd? Does it draw me to my meaning?

Or does it come to silence my purpose? 

I am 26 this year, and I have no answer to if I still hate myself. Each reflection I catch in a mirror, I stay back to examine the person looking back. I do so not out of curiosity, nor admiration of my appearance. But out of an irrational hope that perhaps one day a better person might look back. Does this mean I chase the man I will be? Or the boy I once was?

Or does it simply mean I wish to be anyone else but who I am?

I am 26 this year, and my mind has never felt more fractured. Even writing this short piece, I am unsure if I am speaking for myself. There are voices echoing these walls, so often they mush and slur. We rub elbows, and share this wet, and gruelling darkness. They are the closest to brothers, I have ever truly known. But like many families we grow tired of sharing space. Some days we fight for control, other days we fight to give it up.

Most days, we fight to remember – searching for the exact moment we fractured apart. At least then we could have some proof, that we were ever whole to begin with.

I am 26 this year, and I wish I could cry to save my life. Beyond the assistance of substances, I am adrift from most my emotions. They circle me like vultures waiting for their chance to land. Though I effort to bridge that gap, it seems my deepest secrets still reject me. I thought I had earned my place beside them, and perhaps that would be my right to know them.

But it seems I’ve made a mistake. I suppose I am not short on those too. 

I’ll have lived 26 full years, by the end of this one. Yet it feels like “full” is the wrong word of choice. It feels like my life has barely begun. But it also feels like there is hardly much time left. 

I know for certain I am caught between choosing to start too late, or quieting down and letting the ending pass. 

What would even really be lost, if this is truly all he ever wrote?