Fishing Stories.

"I ache to remember all the violent, sweet, perfect words that you said."

Because I am so much better at going than I am at gone

I am so much better at letting go than I am at letting be

I am so much better at being loved than I am at being in love

I am so much better at emphasizing than I am at sympathizing

I am so much better at getting back up than I am at staying fallen

I am so much better at leaving than I am at staying, but
I am so much better at coming back than I am at staying away

If I could talk to myself as I do to other people, I would be able to figure my life out, if I could only step away from my emotions I could tell myself every right choice, but we were born with a brain and heart and the ability to listen to one at a time, and that's why it's so easy to give advice but not so easy to take it,

and I just wish I could keep every fish I catch but I always let them go because I'm scared of getting whacked in the face, and sometimes they stay in front of me and I toy with the idea of continuing to toy with them, but I inevitably let them flop back into the sea and I lay in bed every time with nothing to my name but the slightly fishy scent left on my fingertips and the realizations that I could have kept any one of them,

and that scent doesn't rub off any easier than the scent of the boy you let make out with you that night, and whether you want to or not you continue to smell that slowly rotting scent, the mud is caked onto your feet from where you were allowing yourself to fish and you're terrified of letting that mud contaminate the rest of your skin, you're terrified of looking into the sea and seeing a face that is being taken over by the mud that only you allowed yourself to walk in,

and isn't it so much better to go to bed with nothing to your name other than a slightly fishy scent

love always, laura elizabeth