to a younger me

how not to do something stupid, a guide by a girl who would know:
you don’t do it.

you can think about it all you want. you can toe the line, dance around the edge of what you know you shouldn’t touch; you can imagine what it would be like to just take the plunge, but that’s all. you can dream. you can pretend. you can take a few steps in the wrong direction.

but you always remember the consequences. you never dance too long, never get too close to the ledge, because stupid is as stupid does and slipping up has nothing to do with intelligence.

life’s messy. anyone can tell you that. people make mistakes and you’ll hear that a thousand times too: the laws of fucking up. it’s like gravity; we all fall down eventually.
we’re absolutely made of mistakes, covered in them, but there’s a certain kind of person that walks willing into that apple tree and you don’t want to be them. everyone wants to believe that they can try to ignore what’s hitting them on the head, that temptation to say we’re all brought low anyway– so you see stupid, and maybe you don’t stay away, but you don’t get close. you don’t invite the bruises.

you want to get away clean.

it’s not about being smart. smart doesn’t mean much. it’s about intact, and the not shattering thing… that’s a good incentive to keep back from what only knows how to drag down. it’s about survival, and maybe life isn’t, really, but it’s sure as hell not about stupid either.

you learn that. you live that. you live.

it’s something.

but stupid’s easy, too, and isn’t easy something? isn’t easy something better than hard, laying down easier than standing? that has to count. you add enough zeroes to anything and it can amount to a lot, if you pick the right place, if you can count high enough.

you don’t do it. you don’t do stupid things. there are laws about that.

there are laws a about a lot of things.

a lot of things break.

a lot of things are easy.

pain’s easy. hurting’s easier than fixing it, than admitting you missed it, that last step you took tip-toeing around the edge.

no, you don’t do stupid things. you undo them. you erase them, cover up the scars, go on walking like you haven’t lost an arm and a leg and a rule book that used to keep away the sort of ideas that lead to a long way down.

you think of the consequences. you toe the line. you never take that fatal step.

you can dream, but that’s all.

there’s a world where you don’t do it.
there’s a time that you’re still dancing, never for too long, never too close.

how not to do something stupid; it’s a short list. one step.

one step too many, one step too far.

you don’t do it.

there are laws about that, you know.

we all fall down eventually.