Sometimes I lay in bed at night and fight to keep all the butterflies together. I sit so still and hold my breath so as not to disturb them.

I am terrified every night that my world is going to shatter into a million pieces and I am going to wake up where I started. I am going to wake up in the state of mind that I’ve lost the ability to fight against. Or worse, I could wake up and be in 11th grade all over again and realize that I never really made it out; I never really escaped.

My entire reality feels as if it has been painted and designed on butterflies wings on the basis that the butterflies will be forever stationary and not give glimpses to the beyond. It has created a bubble for me to hide in and be happy in. A bubble that I trust, yet every night I fear that I will disturb this fragile reality and my world will collapse in on itself showing me that I never really had a chance. I really was everything she ever said I was.

On good days I let myself smile just a little brighter and believe I’m smiling. Those are the days that I let myself dream of someday when my world isn’t threatening to fall through the cracks and I allow myself that hope of one day when I’m not afraid to close my eyes at night.

On bad days I let myself feel the edges of where my happiness ends. I let my imagination see beyond the cracks and feel the pain of failing: of losing: of falling apart. And somehow, it makes me feel better. I enjoy remembering the pain of where I came from and the pain of what could be. It reminds that I’ve been fighting this battle long enough to find the comfort in struggling to be happy.

But most of the time I have neutral days. Days that I am both happy and remembering the fragility of the butterfly wings. I am both fighting to keep my reality right where it is and to accomplish dreams I have only just allowed myself to believe in.

Every day is a tightrope that I balance on while reminding myself of the reasons I should be happy and the reasons I shouldn’t be allowed to be happy, but not really believing either side of the argument.

I am surrounded by people who love me with a future that I’m excited to experience.

Yet every night I wait for the butterflies to flutter into a million directions, leaving me back there with nothing but the remnants of a dream I wouldn’t dare have there. There aren’t enough years between then and now. I keep believing that time will make me believe it’s over.

I thought turning 18 secured my safe haven. I thought attending school far, far away secured my future. But one can never really run from their fear.