if i just wait long enough it will pass.
you asked if you could stay with me while i slept and i said no and then i cried on the floor of my apartment.
it was right for me to say no, but, god, why did you have to ask me?
why did you have to compliment me in that rare way that i can stomach?
you said you were jealous of everybody who got to hear me speak. you said you wanted to ask me thousands of questions just to get to listen to me. you said, anything i wanted to talk about, rest assured you would have asked me about it if you'd known to. you said you wished you'd spoken less because you felt you'd missed out on getting to hear me talk more.
it would have been easier if you'd never said any of that. if, when you got mean, it didn't come as so much of a shock.
i know this can't keep going, so i cried on the floor of my apartment.
believed you too readily. naive for not being cynical.
i told my therapist that, after this last goodbye, i wanted to ask somebody to come give me a hug. i guess i'd never said anything like that in therapy before, because she was surprised by it. she said it was precious. i laughed a little and then said goodbye.
and then i lay, practically back on the floor of my apartment, and i stared at the ceiling, and i listened to music for a while.
(about bart, going under the bay, in a note written on my phone and shown to [REMOVED] while they stood near me)
it's like a lullaby
soothing ambience
asmr: you're inside a screaming machine
old hat
practiced at breathing through it
giving it a minute
i wonder, sometimes, if this is me working it all through
or if it's just me waiting until i give it all up.
curling silver spindly tendrils into the space just under my ribcage
i always believe her
stumbling down stairs on stiff newborn horse legs
easy prey, i'm defenseless
[REMOVED] says not to call myself that
but i build myself up all tough
puff up my chest, act terse.
i wonder if maybe they can all always sense it
a soft underbelly
shouders rolled in
the sexual appeal of a shelter dog, i joke
but is it a joke?
i get told i'm too nice
or that i'm [REMOVED]
but only after [REMOVED]
what does that mean?
i say i'm not warm, not effusive
but i think actually maybe i am
when i feel safe, i am
when i shouldn't feel safe but i look up with shelter dog eyes and decide to be anyway, i am
you think i'm kind now
but you won't ever get to see the entirety of it at this rate
not after the first scare
maybe i'm not the adoptable tragic story infinitely forgiving kind of shelter dog after all
easy prey curled in to protect myself
keeping vital organs safe
most defenseless parts covered/on display/through a window/through a fence/on display/covered/on display/spilling through my fingertips/on display/on display/covered/gone
i've been thinking about feelings and [REMOVED]
[REMOVED] tells me it's ok to share how i'm feeling even if it isn't [REMOVED] or [REMOVED]
i only share a little bit, even then
it's hard to convince myself it's worth it
i try to remember that it's unfair to whoever i'm talking to *and* to me
that's the closest i can get
not wanting to be unfair to the other person, too
i think about times people haven't told me something until it was too late
when i felt the pit in the bottom of my stomach eating away at me in grief and loss at something i didn't even know i could have had
curling up into that little space just under my rib-cage
thinking about putting up decorations in here
corner of the room, tucked away out of sight
hiding in my childhood bedroom crying
hiding in the bathroom at work crying
twinkle lights hung up in here
i'm an adult now
i'm listening to an album i like and thinking about the lyrics
"i don't know how to tell you that your jokes aren't funny"
"you are not as funny as you think you are, as i let you feel"
thinking about people telling me they [REMOVED]
and then hurting me anyway
thinking about myself as a mirror
thinking about how i tailored myself, even if just the slightest bit
trying to come up with a song to send to this classic rock loser that will really devastate him
really bankrupt him
a song far too weird for his ipa sensibilities
i don't even have to try, though, in the end
just sent a pretty normal little diy scene song and it was too much for him
pathetic, ya know?
you're 39, grow up
my body's the only thing i own entirely
and honestly that's questionable
but i'm listening to myself at 24 assert it anyway
right before laughing
sticker near the lake that says "welcome to planet earth"
i feel almost like a human again
what shook loose? what did it this time?
play-acting through the physical distress i should have been feeling, like somebody willing themselves to cry
some build-up of a blank, strange, emptyfull tension
almost human
almost human
almost human
here
here
here
brief moments of my brain working clearly and smoothly and steady
maybe i'm just out of practice
the person on the other side of the counter
doesn't know that i'm not their enemy
or sometimes they do
somebody told me three weeks ago that they'd come back for me if they won the lottery
this week someone else won the lottery
right there in the store
fifty thousand dollars
several times a day i watch the managers count up the hundreds in the till
every couple hours, the same amount i make in a month
and that's just the big bills
i heard there's a mouse in the store somewhere.
i haven't seen it yet but i know it's there.
today a customer seemed to remember mid-transaction that i'm a person too and her whole demeanor changed.
i'm trying not to get caught up in things i hope will happen, but a certain amount of hope is necessary for survival sometimes.
i don't know what will happen in a month, or two, or three.
but i know that i'm doing my laundry on tuesday. i know that i want to make apricot cookies and ice cream for my friend this week. i know that i want to get a bouquet from that little flower shop on the other side of the lake.
i wonder if you ever stop being scared.
[REMOVED]
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