sleep and dream.

i feel so very tired.

why was i filled with such longing? with half-a-heart. as though to see the world, the wonders of it, meant nothing, so long as i only saw it, them, with my own eyes. who cares about what i saw? who cares about the vision, the perspective, of someone who never mattered, who never had a voice?

i think it was good for abrianna to visit. i'm glad that she seems to be doing well. it made me happy, that she would take the time to acknowledge me, that in some small corners of random hearts, maybe i occupied some place of significance. because i really did want something good for these children. i really did want to make some kind of difference...

i felt, in the larger things, i didn't make a difference. i never saved my sister. maybe, it was my influence, or the ways i pulled away, that led to her trajectory. i'm so sorry for that. i wish i could go back in time and talk to her, shift the path that is now laid in the firmament... but it's too late. i was always too late.

people back away from me. they give each other that look. and then they turn away. i'm not sure what it is i did. but i'm too tired now. i mean, i've seen this all before. the ridicule. it's been my long companion. in despair, and perhaps a bit of relief, i've always thought of how i could not change the world, change the heart of it. people look at my passivity and they think it is abdication... but no, it serves a practical purpose, won through experience. no one ever shifted their opinion as a result of me saying anything. my brother thought me a piece of shit, and never responded to what i said. the hearts of others, it was like stone. i made myself small and invisible, and worked like water, slow, over time, to carve the hardness. but beyond that sort of disappearing act, there was, there is, nothing i can do. i speak of love for the children as my only motivation, but really, it is an admission that i can't do much about anything else- about the views, the way i have become a pariah...

are there good goodbye songs?