something is always a little bit wrong.

There’s no relief. No catharsis. No big, worth-it-all result. Just days. Things to do during; eventually; never. Luscious, vibrant feeling and belonging only had when inebriated. Possessed by a free-er You; one you’d want to be, if it didn’t mean discarding yourself as expected. Even if you’re so much fucking happier, with layers removed. Staggering down a hall to piss with the door open, holding a precious hand. Laughing harder and truer than you ever could sober. Declaring love for the world, for strangers, for this very moment, my dear heart! My person, my person—I love you! Coming down, responsibly, to avoid a hangover the next day. Ignoring how fucked every thing of everything feels as you do.
Colours fade. Sounds become too much. Your mind returns to being a problem. A big, horrible problem. For others. Therefore you. Begging for life; for grand dreams of tangled tree limbs and sparkling water and Your self. Unburdened by being better—being anyone but you. Being a thing. Just as you are. Wherever You are.

Mediocrity is the closest to relief, catharsis, a worth-it-all something. Mediocrity is often avoided; often denied, for some. The unwanted leeches. The migrating birds. Which makes it necessary to succumb to, no? Allow self-annihilating mediocrity to join your heavily debated life-portfolio. No-one will be a finished masterpiece, anyway. Maybe that’s why so many chase that damned goal of completion. Perfection. “Our best selves.” ‘Cos maybe it’s how we make up for it. For being alive at all. I don’t know. I never do. I’m just wanting to find myself in trees and water or the rare chance to let alcohol numb this meat sack. Or in words I never say right. Typical places to find You, maybe.

• Cradled in large, exposed roots of a towering tree shading you just-enough from true sunlight drying your tootsies, still wet from exploring the nearby creek; breaking news! A mammal wants to be in nature! A human is sick of concrete! Poor, sad you!
• Pleasantly swaying to the hum of intoxication, tension lost in the shoulders and your softer heart exposed for company you finally have again; how fascinating. As if nobody else hates being sober—no, no, it’s clearly just you that has a hard time with society.
• Feverish scrawling slightly-tearing journal paper as you beg for defined-things to give you answers, solace, proof-of-life; this has become beyond pathetic—this will never be enough and you know it. But that’s exactly why you should bother, smart ass.
• Mediocrity. Mediocrity. Me-di-oc-ri-ty.

My best self is probably shit-faced at a beach with a journal I suddenly wouldn’t care about. Content enough with feeling like I can be somewhere. Wobbly legs, sure. Goofy grin, sure. Aimless, sure. Wasting potential, abso-fucking-lutely. ‘Cos maybe I was made with something stuck in my throat. Maybe I was made a little bit wrong. Maybe I never cared about either until I was told to. Until I realised how warped escaped words became, urging me to rewrite; edit; define. Forced to be unsettled, insistence’s demanding I destroy myself. To make room for better.

Christ. Wasting my potential on a beach sounds a lot less… desperate.

And yet: I can’t do that. Not easily. So instead I rock back and forth while chasing words over and over and over and over until I can let myself present mediocrity at the table. Pretend I’m not hiding by the door, peering in. Seeing who merely looks at it. My half-assed effort. Done for the sake of… what? Self-determination? Self-expression? Communal enrichment? Discipline, desire, disappointment? Defiance? Defiance. Maybe it’s defiance. Despite not wanting my simple existence to be such a drastic statement; for the mediocrity of an unwanted leech & migrating bird to be a drastic statement. But it is. So it will be, with or without my comfort considered. Some stream of consciousness justified as defiant, as big. Better than rambling, not better than poetry. Better off in that journal, regardless.

Shit-faced-at-a-beach me would say so what? Bare your soul! You can’t wish more people did without doing so yourself! I’d tell him he’s right, and he’s so much more than I am. You’re so beautiful. We’re the same, silly! You’re just overprotective. He’d be right again. Always straight to the point, to the answer; things I can’t access when sober. Not until I stop being too cowardly to let him run free. Reckless kindness. Unashamed curiosity. I love him so much I can’t let him out. I can’t let him be met with more hurt, rejection, humiliation; why are you so sure that’ll happen? It’s a cruel world. Ah. Now where have I heard that before? He’d laugh at my sullen face, expressing repulsion for what I said. He’d wipe his eyes, turning to look ahead. At sparkling water. It’ll always happen, and I can always take it. While you only pretend to.

There’s no relief. No catharsis. No big, worth-it-all result. Just days.

Mediocrity isn’t an enemy. A shame. A waste. It’s a promise; it’s calm; it’s crucial. It’s perfect. Exactly what we need when betterment is clawing at our skin. Our own nagging human-souls writhing within us, upset with a lack of progress for a goal we often misunderstand—which is You.
Just ourselves at the end, the accumulation of everything we managed to be with whatever time we had. The nagging progress wasn’t for better, for big. Simply You. Having existed in a constant state of undoing & recreation; shaped by days. Just days.

Just days.

Trying. I’m trying. To allow mediocrity—downright shitty. Or defiant. Take your pick. I’m not in the mood to justify or express a single thing about myself, today. Most times. Nothing big. Nothing cathartic. As agitating as it is. Particularly whilst knowing that beautiful, swaying me is light-years ahead; befittingly dangerous to reach. And a concept unfathomable, to my sober, cowardly mind.

• Between you and me, Reader, Stranger: I want that to be part of my undoing. For recreation to gift me his vivid colours and feverish strokes; free-er than I am.
• No discarding of myself, of what we’ve both been. But a fusion. Combining strengths, accepting weaknesses, indulging not-really-anything’s.
• Just being. Including when I talk out of my BUTT. Like today.

Stuff on stuff, seeing if I mean it; accepting what will never leave my throat. Dying with it all still stuck inside. Hacking up chunks in the meantime during moments of desperation. Inevitable. And fine. Perfectly mediocre, as a guaranteed part of living—all this trying. For none of it to make much sense to yourself. Maybe nobody.
So be it, though: Hacked up chunk on the table. It’s beautiful coward by the door. Grip tight on the wooden frame, resisting the urge to snatch it away. Swallow it back down, faux-bravery stopping the decision. Pretending to be better than I am, at being in a… world. That I never really wanna be in. Never really was. Which makes it odd, to care about a chunk on the table—or does it make complete sense? Am I trying to make up for it, too?

I don’t know. I never do.
It just always amounts to nothing. It’s just always a little bit wrong.

But I love you anyway.

Take care,