One Thing That Has Been Worrying Me A Lot Lately Is How Quickly Time Is Passing. I Can't Comprehend That

Fuck all love letters except whatever Cardan Greenbriar had going on when he wrote “my heart is buried with you in the strange soil of the mortal world, as it was drowned with you in the cold waters of the undersea. it was yours before i could admit it, and yours it shall ever remain”

healing involves a lot more grieving than you’d expect. progress hurts. you’re moving on from things that happened but also things you wished would happen and never did. mourning does not mean you are not getting better.

"...anyone who really knows mankind might say that there is not one single living human being who does not despair a little, who does not secretly harbour an unrest, an inner strife, a disharmony, an anxiety about an unknown something or a something he dare not even try to know, an anxiety about some possibility in existence or an anxiety about himself..."

You're just a mammal. Let yourself act like it. Your brain needs enrichment. Your body needs rest. You feel hunger and grow hair. You need to pack bond with other sentient things so you don't become unsocialized and neurotic. You are biologically inclined to seek dopamine and become sick when chronically stressed. "Hedonism" is made up to place moral value on taking pleasure in sensory experiences. I am telling you that if you don't let yourself be a fucking mammal, as you were made, you will suffer and go insane. No grindset no diets no trying to be above your drive for connection. Pursue what makes you feel good and practice radial rejection of the constructs meant to turn you into a machine. You're a mammal.

No it's not that I don't appreciate the flirting, I just wish you wouldn't do it while I'm in the middle of vivisecting you. Yes I know that it's really hot when I'm covered in your blood elbow deep in your chest cavity that's why I keep vivisecting you. But I keep getting flustered and dropping your liver and its really slippery so I keep dropping it over and over again leading to very comedic slapstick comedy where I slip on your blood and fall over really funny

Whatever you do, don’t imagine todd the night after neil had passed, after the ceremony and all the days events, sitting alone in his room staring straight at neil’s bed.

the messy bed with the blankets thrown back and the pillow still creased after neil had woken up and left for the play. and how none of the poets had dared to touch it.

how todd became so distraught while staring at it he climbed into it and curled up under the covers and started to cry as the blankets still smelled like neil.

how todd spent all night in the bed sobbing his eyes out and holding onto the blankets for dear life, until the morning came and mr nolan came to collect all of neil’s stuff.

don’t imagine how todd fought to stay in the bed and keep neil’s stuff; sobbing and reaching for neil’s belongings as they were carted away like they were nothing but a collection of disappointments.

don’t imagine how todd stole one of neils sweaters without mr. nolan looking, along with one of neils books and kept them for himself.

don’t imagine how when mr nolan had left, and todd was left with nothing but the sweater and book, he curled up on the empty bed, devoid of all blankets, and read.

and how todd had found a poem neil had written, jotted down in messy scrawl on a piece of ripped paper, shoved in between two chapters. and how multiple lines were crossed out and rewritten with the intention of getting it perfect.

And how the poem was addressed to todd,

and how it was a love poem.

don’t imagine it.

5 years he's been in hiding.

5 miserable years he's had to go by a different name, wear different clothes and tell a different story to everyone he meets. He's been James, Frank, he thinks he even went by Dustin at one point. He's had long hair, short hair, he's been bald. He had a beard for a while and taught music in a small music store, but he shaved it off after a week because all he saw in the mirror was Wayne, his uncle, his family, the man he abandoned.

For 5 years, he's been everyone but Eddie Munson.

The government told him he couldn't be Eddie anymore.

"Eddie Munson is dead." They told him; they even had the death certificate to prove it. "Don't come back to Hawkins. Keep moving. There are still people looking for you." Was the last thing they said to him before dropping him off with a wad of cash in some town he's never been to before.

He'd asked for the date at the front desk of a motel, and they'd told him April 20th. Eddie had crumbled down to his knees and cried, he'd cried so hard the motel clerk asked if she should call someone, asked if he was alright.

"I'm fine." Was his broken reply. He'd taken the key for his room, curled up on the uncomfortable bed, and didn’t move for days. He wasn't alright. He'd been in a government hospital for what he thought was a few days but was actually over a month and then released into the world like some rehabilitated animal. He didn't get to say goodbye to anyone. Fuck, he didn't even know if they all made it out of the upside down. All he knew was that he was alone. And that he couldn't go home. Ever.

He'd eventually gotten over himself and made some kind of life for himself.

It took him a few tries to find something that stuck, something that felt sort of like himself. Every few months, an ungodly amount of money appears in his bank account. The formal bank statement says it's from an estranged relative. Eddie knows it's not. He knows it's the government's way of buying his silence. His expensive rent and struggle to find a job is the only reason he doesn't send it all back to them.

He's lived in his current place for a year now, which is a new record for him, but he's got no friends. Well, he has acquaintances, people he can laugh with every now and then and go out for drinks with, but no one who knows him. No one who knows why he wakes every night screaming, no one who understands why he flinches when the lights in the bar flicker, why he hates the sound of people cracking their knuckles and why his hands shake whenever anyone mentions the scar on his face.

It's late at night when he's covered in sweat and his throat is raw from screaming awake from a nightmare, that he really misses his friends, his family, the people that he went through hell with. He's not allowed to call them, not allowed to send them letters or visit. He's not even allowed to know how Wayne is doing. It hurts. It hurts so much. He can't even look at himself in the mirror anymore because he's aged, and he's slowly starting to look more and more like his uncle.

But his friends are a little harder to escape, it's like parts of them have found him and are trying to haunt him, trying to remind him that he can't be a part of their lives.

Just last week, he walked by a book store and saw a brand new fantasy graphic novel on display in the window, 'written by Mike Wheeler & illustrated by Will Byers' was displayed on the bottom of the cover in gold letters. He's never bought a book so fast in his life. He's read it front to back 3 times already.

He can't even watch the news in peace because they were doing a news story about a small town basketball player who's made it to the big leagues and is winning everyone's hearts with his skills and bright personality. Eddie had cried and wished he'd been there to congratulate Lucas, wished he could have been there to tell him how proud he was.

Even Nancy is haunting him. Her news articles get delivered to his front door every day in the paper and most of the time the articles aren't even sad, but he cries at his small dining table alone, his breakfast cold and his coffee filled with his tears.

He misses his friends. He misses them so much and it's eating him alive. It feels like he's lying on the ground of the upside down all over again, tiny little mouths ripping away at his flesh except this time it's happening from the inside. Each time he's reminded how far away he is from his friends, a small piece of him is eaten away.

He doesn't know how much more he can take.

And then something odd happens. He gets a postcard and it's addressed to him, the real him; Eddie Munson.

The handwriting is hard to read and some words have been crossed out but the name signed at the bottom of the card pulls a sob from Eddie's throat and has him almost crumbling on his doorstep.

I'm sorry I took so long. I'll see you soon.

From Steve Harrington.

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— Franz Kafka, Letters to Milena