The Other Side

by Kim Holden

The entire journey back to the Victorian on Clarkson I feel guilty. Guilty I enjoyed myself. Guilty I was gone and not available for work if something happened. Guilty I spent the dollar that I could’ve spent on food or something else. Guilty I chose Amazing Spider-Man over Usagi Yojimbo. Guilty that maybe I don’t feel guilty enough. You name it, I feel guilty about it.

Guilt and me, we’re conjoined. One. When it isn’t stabbing me, I drag it around like a ball and chain.

A kiss should feel like you’ve been plunged into an abyss that you may never surface from, or it isn’t worth doing.

Yelling twists my guts and fills my head with obnoxiously loud static.

If you’re right, you don’t yell about it until you’re red in the face and someone believes you. Volume doesn’t change minds, it closes them.),

Cynicism doesn’t hear hope. Cynicism doesn’t consider hope. Cynicism just yells louder. Because maybe if it yells loud enough, hope will fade away.

“The most important time to listen is when words are missing, that’s when hearts cry out the loudest.”

It’s the overwhelming rush of disappointment in me, my actions, and my life. It’s the constant reminder that I’m an asshole who deserves nothing and no one. It’s the message that runs on a loop through my brain, reminding me that I’m hopeless and everyone would be better off if I wasn’t around.

She’s curious by nature about getting to know people, but her curiosity doesn’t come with a side dish of scrutiny.

For all the confidence she’s gained the past two months, that one sentence was a devastating blow that will negate it all. A single negative can wipe out one hundred positives.

Love isn’t lopsided. Infatuation is.”

Mothers should safeguard their children’s fragile vulnerability; instead, theirs wields shame and guilt like a machete. Slicing through them with words meant to wound when she feels the need to reinstate her sense of absolute authority. Or when she’s jealous of something they’ve accomplished that she never could, she cuts them off at the knees in an attempt to make herself feel better. Toby

You are the mind-numbingly radiant dream that isn’t possible!

There are people we meet in this life who anchor us. They reassure us with their presence. They bring us comfort simply by being. They love by osmosis, radiating it out and diffusing it in effortlessly. Quietly, they walk among us, treading lightly but providing stability and influence because it’s second nature. The thing that’s so special about these people is that they don’t even know they’re doing it.”

You’re worth fighting for. You have no fucking idea how much I wish you realized it and started fighting for yourself.

“And depression isn’t about weakness, it’s about battling and wanting to deaden the pain, not the person.”

I think sometimes we take people for granted…or we just assume that they know how we feel about them because if it’s so obvious to us, shouldn’t it be obvious to them too?

“The girl who sees the stars despite the clouds taught me to do the same. And it changed everything.”