Crying can be therapy- please don't be afraid for me. I'm rinsing out the cuts.

 It's been five years since you last heard from me. 

So much has changed and yet nothing at all.

 Grace is still dying by inches. 

I'm still raw from it, still fighting depression, still moving on with nails black from grave dirt- both digging and digging out. 

I'm less concerned with dandelions now- courage may no longer be the answer. If it isn't the answer though, what is? 

I'm less certain of the existence of a God. 

I don't believe in sin. There is good and bad and a million shades in between. Most days I can believe I am trying to do good.

 I'm fighting to keep breathing day by day and am still haunted by the phantom itching of maggots behind my back. 

When I die, burn me up. 

I cannot stand the thought of decay. I would rather be a candle and ash than food for worms.

 Behind the brambles though, behind my bitter thoughts of dead weeds and deader sisters, I am okay. 

I am still moving on, moving up. 

It is hard and hard work this living thing.

I suppose bleeding is a sign that your heart is still beating, but I would like to be done.

Bleeding that is- not beating. I have a few more years in me yet. 

Red is a horrid color. I don't know why I hated pink and purple for so many years when red is so much more hateful. Roses are not clean anymore. 

Gross sometimes sounds like my name. 

Do you know you can stop moving for so long the world rots beneath you? 

I was happy that it was. I was glad to dissolve... and yet, I got up. She has not. 

I give her six months and beg her to prove me wrong. 

I would like it to be at least another five years before I come crying here again that she is dying. Or forever. 

It would be nice to burn out first. 

Doubt trickles in though until I am drowning. 

I wonder what I will do on the day nothing is dry.