The Sea of Tranquility

by Katja Millay

I live in a world without magic or miracles. A place where there are no clairvoyants or shapeshifters, no angels or superhuman boys to save you. A place where people die and music disintegrates and things suck. I am pressed so hard against the earth by the weight of reality that some days I wonder how I am still able to lift my feet to walk.

That nothing you do matters. It doesn’t matter if you do everything right, if you dress the right way and act the right way and follow all the rules, because evil will find you anyway. Evil’s resourceful that way.

Sometimes it’s easier to pretend nothing is wrong than to face the fact that everything is wrong, but you’re powerless to do anything about it.”

It amazes me how people are so afraid of what can happen in the dark, but they don’t give a second thought about their safety during the day, as if the sun offers some sort of ultimate protection from all the evil in the world. It doesn’t.

People like to say love is unconditional, but it’s not, and even if it was unconditional, it’s still never free. There’s always an expectation attached. They always want something in return. Like they want you to be happy or whatever, and that makes you automatically responsible for their happiness because they won’t be happy unless you are.

even if there was such a thing to begin with, perfect never lasts.

Silence takes a serious amount of discipline. Because when you can talk but you just don’t, part of your mind is constantly occupied with concentrating on making sure you don’t open your mouth.

I’m trying to see the magic in everyday miracles now: the fact that my heart still beats, that I can lift my feet off the earth to walk and that there is something in me worthy of love.