I own this like you own the clouds. In our odd dreams.

Dedicated to the moon for the random push.

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Everybody needs a release…

I didn't have one for a while… and as anyone that knew me can attest to, I wasn't doing so well. I mean yeah, I had some pretty big responsibilities… okay, bloody huge responsibilities, but still, I was not coping well.

Hiding from my friends, mood swings, breakdowns, and constant pressure was tearing through me. I just… I couldn't stand it. I had to find some way to get some of my pressure out of me… a release. Well, this right here is my release.

I guess I'm saying this to justify me writing this kind of thing… I mean, is it really right for me to write my thoughts, my feelings, out like this… it feels weird. I mean, who just sits here and writes about themselves? Okay, well, I know some people keep journals, but those are mostly girls right? And I don't really fit that profile too well…

And once again, I demonstrate my perfected ability to take the smallest, inane thing and blow it up to astronomical proportions. I shouldn't care why I'm writing this. Nobody else will see it… it won't effect them. Just me. And that's the whole point.

So it's like this. I'm just a kid, right, and my friends look to me constantly for direction, for help. For strength, for knowledge, for… I don't even bloody know. They expect me to always be the one who stands up and says "I'm here for you, I'm doing fine, I can help." I mean sure, they'll apologize for laying stuff on me, but in reality, how would they react if I said, "No, I'm not helping. I'm just not." It's not like I don't want to help, I really do. It's just… the feeling of needing to help that breaks me. That I don't get a choice.

And yeah, of course they ask me if there's something wrong with me when I act like I'm feeling down. They'll say that I need to tell them if something's wrong, that I can come to them. But that's not what they really want. They don't want me to be able be anything other than that steady rock that they can always rely on. They don't want me to be able to choose the "I feel like shit" option.

Then there's my elders. My teachers, my would-be parents… my would-be stranglers. Most of them want to help… minus that last group. But overall, they do care about me. What they don't get is that fine line between helping and leading. I don't mind the little parental hovering here, the push there. Honestly, I kind of like it, maybe because it's been absent all my life before now. But that doesn't mean that I'm suddenly going to give up my free will. I still need to be able to make the final choice myself.

There it is again. Maybe that's the biggest thing here. I want to be able to have a choice. I need it. Over everything else, the one thing that I can't seem to stand Is my lack of choosing for myself. It's not like I still don't despise what else has happened. If I could change what's happened… I would give anything. Even my own life. But I can't take being led on a leash. I can't survive if I don't break free…

I just need to be able to make my own decisions… lead my own life… no matter where it goes. I can't be in a cage like this damnit! Maybe that's it… I need to get free. I know I won't make it through this if I don't make a change now… if I don't start to live my own life, I won't have a life at all.

Wow, I figured that out kind of quick… Actually, maybe I've always known it. I just never said it. Never decided that it's true. Well, here's my first choice of my life. I choose to make choices. Funny, isn't it? Seems so simple…

So that's it I guess. I'm going to start making my choices, and follow them wherever they go.

Moving on would be better than staying here.

Making the wrong choices would be better than no choices.

Dying would be better than life like this.


Dumbledore stared at the small, hardly used rich green journal lying on his mahogany desk.

Five weeks after the unexplained, sudden disappearance of Harry Potter. Five weeks of frantic searching. No signs to where he vanished off to, or even why he left.

Or so Dumbledore had thought.

Turns out all the signs were there, flashing in neon.

And Dumbledore's tired eyes couldn't help but begin to leak out tears as he realized that the majority of those signs pointed straight at him.