-3:37AM, Sun. May 2nd, 2021- As I run my fingers over this keyboard, that may I just say is in dire need of a dusting, I can't help but feel a sick nostalgia set in that makes my stomach turn. The sharp pangs reminiscent of a feeling not unlike starvation, but the hunger was never of the body, no, I felt it in my mind. I put down my pen for so long that it's weight shifts in my hand, like sitting across from an old friend and realizing you no longer know them. As the feeling further sets in, you begin to question if you ever knew them. But then I remember something, I'm not quite sure what, or even how to put it into words, but I'll try.  It's something beyond bullshit metaphors, analogies, euphemisms, references, etc, it's something bigger, bigger than me or you or your neighbor or their second cousin, or that cousin's kid's nephew's closeted girlfriend who's in too deep to tell him she can't stay, as oddly specific as that is, it's bigger than that. It's as small as the bud of a dandelion, but as monumental as a skyscraper. A speck of dust floating through the air in the middle of a car crash. No more than a pinhead, but no less than the space of a galaxy, hell, a universe. So who am I to believe I've found it? This beautiful, abstract, hellish amalgam of life, death, sorrow, joy, pain, pride, hope, loss, incredible loss, grief, fleeting moments; glimpses of what the craziest of the sane population call God, the 7 billion 48 million that have 2.5 billion heart beats inside each and every one of their body's, broken, strong, persistent, beautiful, rough, real, disgustingly lovely human beings, and who am I to say what defines us all?  "-and though, I am unconscious of intentional mishaps.I am nevertheless too sensible of myDefects not to think it probable thatI may have committed many errors." and there it is. Error. That beautiful, fucked up cacophony of life, love, learning, weeping, seething, perfection.  I don't pretend to have the answers. I sure as hell don't think of myself as someone who has reached enlightenment, at the very most beyond a few fleeting moments.  But I will tell you this, and I will live by it until the day I breathe my last breath and cash my last heartbeat after hopefully all 2.5 billion of them; your flaws are beautiful. Each and every one of them. Your scars, your bruises, the lines, the cracks in the road that make up the path you've traveled, they remind you of the distance behind you, and they put perspective to the trail ahead. Be proud of your pain, be proud of every breath you take, be PROUD of every skinned knee or sprained wrist or broken bone or line on your wrist, roll your Goddamn sleeves up. No matter the scar, no matter the aftermath, be proud that you lived through it all.  So maybe it's not some grand answer, or mind bending equation, It's just a story, actually, it's 7 billion 49 million stories.  and each and every one of them begins with a breath.  So keep on breathing.