"You can be as mad as a mad dog.

You can curse the fates.

But when it comes to the end,

You got to let go."

I promise.

Today

Was good.

Dear Bruno,

I miss you terribly.

You were right all along.

I'll give you a piece of my mind

of course.

Go

Fucking

Figure.

hook, line, and sink.

Once there was a little girl who believed in fairy tales. Who lived in the lives of fictional characters or others who were in love, thinking she too will grow up to love just as those she has seen. Idealism, romanticism, happily ever after, tried and true. Never knowing the hardships of pain, disappointment, abandonment, and false truths, she thought all life playing out in front of her is what is to be expected when she gets older. Reality was foreign to the little girl, as she was a child idolizing such things brought to motion through another's creativity.

Then one day she met Death, and Death took him away from her. Death was confusing. She kept believing that soon he would come walking through the kitchen door, or be waiting for her in his big round chair. Death's permanence began to take its hammer and chip away at her full, ripe, untainted little heart. The many masks Death wore fooled the little girl time, and time again, and soon it took away another man, only in a more brutal way. Unlike the first, he was not in a grave, but hundreds of miles away. Death danced in delight, reveling with glee that it began to watch the little girl's heart turn from hot to cold. Soon her smile was not as bright, her laughter was not as genuine, her dreams were not as colorful.

The little girl did not comprehend the meaning of such loss, loss by one's choice and loss by one's fate. Her heart no longer beat the same. She learned of anger. She learned of resentment. She learned mistrust. She soon became stone.

One after another, as she loved through life, they failed her. She tried hard to retain that faith she once had, those fairy tales she knew, those love stories she read. But eventually, Death's planted seed within her grew, and fearful she began to be. Always plotting her next move, always setting up any new person she would meet: "he will leave me;" "he will cheat me;" he will use me;" "he will lie to me."

No matter which creature she encountered, no gentle giant or cute kitten or cuddly bear or prince disguised as a frog could cure the ailment Death delivered to her that one night many years ago. Constantly, she struggled to break free and regain that dream dreamt before. She swore she could beat it, prove Death wrong, as it would not take another from her again; she would play its game and win.

She clung on to every love she had; she clung to every sinking ship, determined that she could be strong enough to make that ship sail. Slowly that battered heart began to beat a different sound. One of compromise, but compromise of herself, thinking she could make anything possible by becoming whatever that ship needed in order to survive. She became a mast, a hull, a crew, a rudder, a captain, a sail, a cannon, a jib, a deck, a boom. But for every part she was, it never fixed the problem.

The familiar smell of defeat resonated in her. She questioned her purpose. She questioned her heart. She tried the same thing, over and over and over again, hoping that maybe she would get it right. She would rise to the occasion and weather through every storm, and hoping one day that ship would never sink again. But the tides of change came faster than before. And they came in rapid succession, faster and faster, quicker than last, leaving no time to recover from such gashes, scrapes, wounds, and beatings every ship caused her.

That little girl is not little anymore. Now a woman, reluctant in dreams. Hesitant in fate. Spiteful in truth. Angry with love. She now calculates every move, believing she can be one step ahead of the rest, never missing an opportunity, always asking "what if?" Locked away in her mind, is that old desire to capture the little girl's unicorn. The woman battling within herself how to love and how to let go; how to accept the past and how to move on. Burning every bridge new love tries so hard to rebuild, even when they come with glue, hammers, nails, bandaids, or true love. She cannot stop wondering about if she could have done anything to save those old ships that sunk many times before. That sliver of what is left of a heart barely beating within her, so bruised and too timid to allow one more a chance to nurture it back to health. The heart that was once so pure before Death came and made that pureness disappear.