Rescinded. I Will Not Apologize.

I opened my journal for the first time in months. It's filled with letters of repent to the people who've hurt me, and the only thing I thought was that these people will never see the letters and they will never hear the apologies. Why? Because them hurting me is not my fault. I will not apologize.

Every day, I wake up saddened because I have lost people that I cared deeply about. I loved them, I went out of my way for them, I fought to keep them safe and loved, even when they weren't looking, and I thought of them all the time and what I could do to help them. I can look in the mirror and honestly say that I was a good friend to them. They can tell the stories of the occasions where I wasn't my best self, they can fabricate the things that they want me to have said or done, they can tell me that "everyone would be better off if I fucked off", but I know who I am. And now I know who they are.

The one who begs: The one who will do anything to make himself the victim to achieve attention.
The one who preaches: The one who blindly follows one story without proof and spreads the word.
The one who ignores: The one who would rather stay out of it, saving himself instead of another.
The one who encourages: The one who carries the traitors into battle through their spirit and defense.

This is my beginning. I am walking alone now. Every one that I have ever loved has abandoned me, with no other cause than a liar who managed to convince them all my evil. Their ignorance tells me they are children, with little more to gain than a pack of wild ideas to chase because they have no other means to an end. I have lost everything, so I have everything to gain. Apologies are not my means to an end, and I take back any apology or pleading for forgiveness. I did nothing wrong.

I did not raise an army.

I did not raise a lie.

I did not force down doors.

I did not force open their eyes.

I offered them a choice.

They chose to fight against me.

They chose to live the lie.

They took down my defenses
They bled me until I cried.

And I will NOT apologize.

~E J Royson

Something to Do, Something to Love, and Something to Hope For

His hand brushed against the fabric of the drapery and he looked on at the rain coming down from the sky. "I've been trying for months now," he said quietly, his eyes in the distance.

"What?" she asked, looking up from gathering her books for class.

"To figure you out," he finished. "You're hard to read."

"I'm not really that hard to figure out," she said, resuming packing her bag. "Look in any young adult novel, and you'll find me... a troubled teenage girl looking for adventure, but instead finds romance that forces her to settle down into the hell she swore never to enter. Pretty cliche," she told him.

"You can still go on adventures," he said, turning back from the window at the girl with a sad and distant gaze.

"There are no adventures left in this world to be had," she told him, taking her raincoat off the hook and sliding it onto her shoulders. "Adventures of far off, magical lands, are just stories in history books. Wars fought for freedom and honor are things of the past. People of injustice, escaping to freedom, no longer have an isle to look to. There is little left to discover in this world. Wars are fought instead for blackened gold and subjective ideals of what ignorant people believe to be the only right. People are forced into fallacies of believing they are safe in their freedom, told that one tiny voice can change the world. That one voice can do nothing without and army ringing behind it..." she trailed off thinking for a moment. "And people," she continued, "trick themselves into thinking love is an adventure within itself. That's how they get forced into giving up their dreams of adventure, their dreams of accomplishing anything of actual importance."

"You're too cynical," he said. "It's really not so bad as you think," he tried to persuade her, taking a few steps towards. "People who fall in love and give up on their dreams must really not have valued their dreams much in the first place. Love shouldn't hold you down, shouldn't hold you back. It should give you the confidence to achieve, the freedom to go out and explore."

"And if there is nothing left to achieve? Nothing left to explore?"

"Then tell me, if there is nothing left to be tried that is different from what has come before, why do we still bring life into the world? There will always be more to discover and if our time runs short, we will have others to continue searching. There are more adventures in this life than love," he said taking her hand, "but it doesn't mean you should exclude experiencing love from your list. Not everyone will hold you down. When you love someone, you will stop at nothing to show them just how high they can soar."

"And what if you get tricked by someone who promises to give you wings but instead pins you to the ground? They run circles around you, pretending they are achieving something extraordinary by keeping you down, when really they just want to feel as if they can accomplish something in their miserable life." She pulled her hand from his and turned away. "It's far to easy to be fooled by someone you think you can trust," she said quietly, sadly reminiscent.

"You are a kite, darling. When someone takes the wind from your sails, know another will see just how beautiful your colors are and will want to see you reaching for that endless blue sky of possibility. Don't give up on flying because one person tries to hold you down. If you know how wrong it is for someone to keep you stuck on the ground, then know it will be so much more satisfactory when you get back up and keep flying. No one can help you fly if you let yourself remain wounded. What he did to you is only over when you decide it is, when you decide to fix your broken wing. And when you decide to wipe that smug look off his face, get up and show him what for, I'll keep the wind in your sails. I promise."

~E J Royson