I would have said,

No time but this
this
this. She went
to take pictures of the team (her team, she thought,) and felt that old awkwardness creeping up.

where does it come from.
Hand on steel
finger on trigger
that internal quiver won't make me stop. snap snap.
It's funny but it was that joke that kept creeping into my head too, and thinking about all of the changes of the past year, and staying true to who you are. Something was overwhelming. It had to be rooted out. The overwhelming thing was making me cringe from my head to my toes. And so we did, we rooted it out.

If I was there banging at the castle wall,
you would only let me in because of the
quid
pro
quo.

By being too kind I have wasted my life.

I won my first ribbon in a photography show, found out over the weekend.
The ribbon is green in this case signifying honorable mention
and not envy.

What color would anger be, and surely it wouldn't be the firey hues we so often associate with it. That is passion. Grey, I think. The color of giving up but wanting, the color of burying a thousand failures instead of charging headlong, the one that leaves you blaming the world before you even step out the front door. Grey.

What exactly was there to hold on to, she wondered, and promised to not get too worked up.

Well, you're through it then. I thought I would be noble but it turned out that nobility didn't suit me. My mistake. That is the short and the long version of how it happened. I have no need for forgiveness because I'm a scoundrel and this doesn't bother me. Sometimes what everyone needs is to be turned out onto the street with no plan and lots of alcohol available. And a general disdain for what your life has become. That's when you figure out the really good stuff.

Safety is a tomb.
Run from it until you no longer need it.
Beat it and make it your slave.

Rise like lions after slumber
in unvanquishable number -
shake to earth your chains like dew
which in sleep had fallen on you.
You are many, they are few.

end
transmission.