CAN I START OVER?

Can I start over?

That haircut forever documented

For once

The adults that said "Those posts never REALLY go away"

You agree

And wish you had listened

Can I start over?

That Steel Magnolias monologue I just flubbed

I pulled out a lot more fake emotion yesterday

But for some reason

I’m numb today

Can I start over?

All the aches from sports I’ve loved or grown to disdain

Depending on the day

I could leap down a stage

Joints and limbs extended

Effortless poise to praising avail

Now I’ll walk down the aisle

Pinched nerves in both hips and knees

Degree of poise and effort to be agonizingly determined

Hope the groom doesn’t mind if I take my time

Can I start over?

Watch my favorite movie for the first time

I wanna re-discover Technicolor for the first time with Judy Garland

Both tortured by our art

and the community within it tearing us down

Maybe it could pay for my own pair of ruby slippers one day

Can I start over?

My job history

My search history

Those like me who wanna do this*

*A life of endless straining

Hardly complain of a bit more ambition

Flipping patties or tom-tomming lattes for their future zealots

They don’t need to see “media writer jobs near me”

Lying in my search engine

Opportunities only trans-continentally out of reach

Can I start over?

Failed loves

Failed tests

I thought I loved space

I thought I loved animals

Then I failed that geometry class

and watched too much Dr. Pol

and realized that you gotta like math to be an astronaut

and know how to tell someone to say goodbye to their beloved pet

I would walk out on the first days

Real unprofessional, right?

Can I start over?

Some words I couldn’t take back

Remarks I left out to rot

Corpses of sentences

Worms of guilt wriggling through its decaying teeth

Wait.

NOW we’re getting unrealistic

Can I start over?

Like when a book pulls those

“and then I woke up” kind of endings

This isn’t a “Can I be done?”

or “Can this ALL be over?”

Can I just start over?

*

In a way, I’m getting to start over in this next phase of my life. Uprooting from dead roots and planting in fresh, mean, green soil.

There’s no way to escape the past. Your credits will transfer, receipts of an education abandoned for another. You make friends by accident in the places you’re deemed to depart. A community that has looked at your every move since you won the spelling bee in fourth grade is looking to what’s next for you.

There’s no way to escape your past, but I’ve learned that I’m capable of growing from outgrowing it.

So, can I start over? In my own beautiful way, I can.

Cheers

and Hollywood, please pay your writers; I want a seat at the table eventually,

Mo $$<3<3

(I finished Adventure Time a couple of days ago. Finn The Human realizing that after all of his strife and struggle that he still remains the authentic version of himself he values the most has been reverberating in my soul. I'm in a new environment where I can be the me I love most, and it's felt like quite a bit since I felt this excited for change. Thanks for reading, skimming, or dropping in to see if I still do this. It means the world and a few other planets to me)

Cheers pt. 2,

Mo.