what tomorrow brings.

vi. you can be anything.

vi. YOU CAN BE ANYTHING.

my mother tells me i can be anything, to dream big and to reach for all the stars the night sky has to give. i watch my goldfish swim around in the only place it's ever known, circling the wrecked ship more than once and never stopping to stare back at me. i trace his gills, the way they open, his wide eyes and how they wander. I wonder how big he dreams, if he thinks he's as aggressive as a big black bear, as soft as a kitten that coddles her mother on cold nights like this. the fish and i are almost the same, instead of scales, i'm left with sharpened rib cage bones, instead of gills, i am left with self inflicted open wounds. We're both trapped in a glass container, his only more literal than mine, for you can't see mine yet i'm still suffocated by the water that is overfilling the brim. he lives, he breathes, if he could, he would reach for the stars above and swim through the milky way. my mother tells me i can be anything, unfortunately i chose to be a disappointment
coward
anxiety, quiet shaking hands, dull eyes-

i chose to be this way.
isn't that all that it comes down to anyways?

i'm the creator of the voices in the back of my head, i am the reason i am never good enough, i am the afterthought, the thrown away, the useless. i am the cause of these battle wounds, the stutter in my words, i am why God is thought to be make belief. i am sad and it's all my fault. i am ugly because i don't wake up early to curl my hair and choose to eat less scraps than the fish before me. i listen to songs that are drenched in heartbreak, watch movies with hopeless endings, i look in the mirror and i cause myself to cry.

the fish, afterall, gives more to the world than i could ever dream of.

my mother tells me i can be anything,
is it too late to believe?