?

It was terrible watching you from across the cafeteria today. The way you stared intently at your book, not looking up even for a second when people shouted your way or hilariously decided to bump a trashcan into you. No. Instead you focused on reading with a level of devotion unseen before. So focused you were trembling, so focused on the meaningless words in front of you, you forgot to turn the page. I know you didn't want anyone to notice that, and I'm sorry.

I'm sorry I didn't move to talk with you, I'm sorry I didn't have the courage. I'm sorry that I figured a simple, meaningless conversation would provide more stress for me than relief for you. Granted, maybe it would've. Maybe you were happier in your attempts at immersing yourself within the book. Maybe things were better off outside that cafeteria, as you left behind the people, the noise, and the chaos. You left behind pleading cries for attention, and the unwinding need for every single person in there to be recognized as a special snowflake. To be loved, to be cherished, to be noticed. Perhaps you were fortunate enough to have left that behind and instead you were a part of some alternate universe where rather than being painfully involved in this life, you were an onlooker in another. With no deep connection, no direct involvement - no love, no loss, no pain. It's much easier that way.. and to an extent, I hope that's exactly where you were, because I wish we could realize that all of this isn't worth all that we put into it. I don't really mean that in a depressed way as much as me thinking that agonizing over life isn't really worth it. Staring at some flashing line in front of an empty white page on a computer screen, while desperately searching for the right words to describe some sense of helplessness isn't necessarily worth it if, ultimately, it'll only amount to nothing. Therein, fumbling over the words to add some hollow conversation shouldn't be a problem, and neither should have standing up and walking over to you in the first place been.

I think somewhere in there I contradicted myself.

I like being so close to people you can feel their heartbeat.. That's when you take two living entities and bring them together in such a way the literal, physical life within them is close enough to have a feeling. And it's the realest feeling in the world, as you take the lonely and bring them together in such away that makes the sense isolation - although only temporarily - disappear. The reason I'm saying this is because I'm fairly certain I've never met anyone who could honestly tell me they were genuinely happy with their lives. And I just feel like if we could, at the very least, recognize this within each other, then maybe we'd be closer to somehow bettering that.

How cathartic..

I wasn't just watching you in the cafeteria today, because there's more to it than that. Because it wasn't just you sitting there with eyes glazed over and a resilient focus set on escaping. Not only you trying heartily to ignore the faces and the voices around you and break free towards something bigger and better than this. You sure as hell weren't alone there.