You'll Be Fine

You’ll be fine.

Look at me, kid, you’ll be fine.

I promise you.

I am a piece of shit—a walking disappointment.

I really am.

You are so much better off without me.

I am going nowhere fast.

All I do is smoke weed and read.

I don’t want anything.

I like drinking.

I really do.

I don’t do it as much as I’ve led on, though. Drinking is a romantic fantasy to me. It’s seasoning for shitty poetry. 

But,

I do hit the bong over and over again until I fall asleep for a few hours at a time. 

I want you to know all of this before you decide anything. 

These poems are shit.

These books of mine are trash.

I had talent, but I wasted it.

I don’t want to go back to school,

not when most of it is online.

You’ll be fine 

without me.

I have no money.

My eyelids are always heavy.

I only smile because of you.

You don’t know me, you only know the me who knows you. 

Melting into a couch with Stanley is one of my best skills.

I hate this government and want to rebel against it.

I hate paying taxes.

There isn’t much that I do care about.

I’d drag you down.

I’d become a burden.

I’d wear the same clothes and eat the same food.

You’d get sick of me, I bet. 

I’d be your biggest fan,

but I can be that from anywhere.

You are better off without me, kid.

Stop and think about it . . .

I am a piece of shit.

And you bagged AP Lit.

I don’t even want to take care of myself.

I’m too prideful to ask for help.

And I am too stubborn to tell you that I love you.

. . . It is true, though, I do still love you.

I haven’t said it in a while.

I think I might always love you.

Would that be okay?

What if you were stuck with me for a little bit longer?

Let me just say, I love you, but I don’t like the way you love me.

I can’t stand the way you treat me; although, I can’t really blame you. 

You are better off without me, kid.

And I am better off with you. 

Because,

I hate the way you love me,

And I despise the way you’ve treated me, 

But I’ll always love you.

I have to. 

I’m sorry for that.

I’m sorry you have to be stuck with a piece of shit like me.

You can let go when you want to

but I am going to hold on.

I’ll live in these dreams and fantasies of ours,

And from afar,

I will love you.

I reckon the best thing I’ll ever do 

between 1992, 

and whenever I die, 

is to love you. 

You’ll be fine without me, though. I am almost sure of it. 

Choose someone else over me again. 

Choose yourself—it’s the best thing you can do for you. I mean that. I really do. And I swear, it’s almost true. 

Just don’t ignore your feelings. To do that is to betray the self. 

Don’t choose a self that isn’t real yet. 

If ‘you’ love me, then isn’t it the ‘you’ that you have to choose? Is there a version out there who doesn’t love me? Where is she? . . . She’s just a convenient fantasy.

Don’t you see that the version of you who doesn’t want to be with me is just a fantasy?

If you choose yourself, and yourself presently wants me, then you have to honor the self that loves me. That is the true you. 

The you in the present is the only you who’s presently ‘real’. 

Do not betray the self by going against your feelings. 

Do not try to swim against the current; you will tire yourself out and feel as if you are drowning again. 

Give in. 

Let love live. You love love, don’t you? 

Love the version of you who is in love, that is the real you. That is your soul's calling to become more—to experience more—to share your life with someone new.  

Don’t ignore your feelings. Don’t betray yourself. 

Only let me go if you really feel it. 

And then, at that time, you’ll be fine without me, kid. Until then, keep living. 

There are no more goodbyes for you and I, only ‘until we meet again’ again and again and again, until the day we do meet again. 

You’ll probably be fine without me until then.

CH 5/13/26