when you turned 20, you decided. this was it, no if, ands, or buts. you took ever failed test, every dance injury, every late night and early morning and shoved this into a locked box in the back of your mind because you believed so hard that this would be worth it (no if, ands, or buts.) it had to be.

people called you reliant because you had a back-up plan, but what they didn't realize is that you crumpled it four years ago when you decided it would be fun to audition and ripped it into shreds the day you skipped school for voice lessons. what university would accept a failed student, a once-upon-a-time top five of the school, now a bottom zero. the alternative would be your parents but isn't that why you ran away? because finding your own path would be infinitely more satisifying than following the one already laid out for you (you've been laying down gold bricks for years but you're still not sure where they'll go)

one day you found yourself in a desert, a dead end, stuck seven years into a life you weren't sure they'd let you have and nothing in you bag or your past that could help you because you'd thrown it all out. that one day because your everyday and sometimes you wonder if it's possible to pick up some of the bricks along your path and try again, only to remember that the mud is like quicksand and there's no turning back. the only way out is forward.

and then, one day, you got out