And if candor strikes to forcefully, step back, draw careful breath, and consider the angle your words must take before you open your mouth, let them leak out. Because once you tilt the truth, it becomes a lie.

When all choice is taken from you, life becomes a game of survival.

Memory is a tenuous thing, like a rainbow's end or a camera with a failing lens.

Anger requires energy, something I don't dare waste on what cannot be altered.

Love without trust is nothing more than infatuation.

And now life has become the future. Every moment of your life is lived for the future-you go to high school so you can go to college so you can get a good job so you can get nice house.

Am I more afraid Of taking a chance and learning I'm somebody I don't know, or of risking new territory, only to find I'm the same old me? There is comfort in the tried and true. Breaking ground might uncover a sinkhole, one impossible to climb out of. And setting sail in uncharted waters might mean capsizing into a sea monster's jaws. Easier to turn my back on these things than to try tjem and fail. And yet, a whisper insists I need to know if they are or aren't integral to me. Status quo is a swamp. And stagnation is slow death.