I write because I cannot speak
cannot say out loud what I try to convince myself isn't true
I write and I bleed
thoughts and emotions
wet and raw and /there/
warmth slips down my face in a shaky line
I won't wipe
won't acknowledge is there
I'll look you in the eyes
splayed open
/bleeding/
     /real/
and avoid thinking about how the last time I showed these gorey parts of myself to someone else they left
/they left/
and they had /promised/
does it scare you too?
To know of the power you hold over me?
I try and I try and I try
And I still come out not knowing better
Hindsight saying I should have listened to my instinct
But I fight against it every time
I make the same mistakes again and again
Because I still have hope
Does that make me foolish?

The only steady thing in this world is the fire in yourself--
A burning, constanly flickering flame refusing against all odds to die out
You are here
You are burning

A dusty grey gritty feeling has always been in my lungs from choking back words and impulse I'd be admonished for breathing

It took years of practice to craft the smog into a milky then translucent expected response: appropriate ---Instead of one lacking tact

But with you
I falter

You say you care about me
but it's not in the way I want you to
I want to grow old and share our lives
I want to wake up with coffee on the porch and a cat in our respective laps
I want to tell you about my day in a more than a friend kind of way

I care about you
but more than you do about me
and I'm still learning to accept that
a slow realization with heartache that we will never be what I want

and it's a shock to my system to acknowledge the fact that someone has felt this way for me before
I could not reciprocate then
and you will not reciprocate now

and it seems silly to think about
7 years ago I fell in love and I haven't fallen out since

I'm fearful for the day I lose all sense of self
and it's not like my worth is equated in belongings
but I'm losing mine now and that's something to grieve
realistically
I know
they are still there
just tucked away for a later date
but for now I lose the enrichment in my enclosure
and can't help but feel a void opening in this cavity I call a chest

I think I've been too much again
too obtrusive in ways that I don't mean to be
I'm codependent and that's not healthy
but I felt that I could be with you and now I'm not so sure

but you said you needed space
and I understand needing to be alone
but I can't help this feeling that I've done something wrong to push you away

I'm a lot and I know that
it's hard to admit it to myself
you kept me steady and routine
I'm not quite sure how to deal without
right now of all times

I'm vexatious
and burdensome
difficult
and loud
annoying like a fly buzzing in your ear;
constant and disruptive

and I talk about myself way too much
and I share little things about my day
and I think they've added up to being too much

and others tell me I'm not
but it feels like they're just placating
because I'm never too much with them  and I know I am with you

this is why I don't let people in
because every time I do they eventually pull away
unable to keep up with everything I am
so I pull back instead
hesitant to jump in
the water is always a shock to my system
I started wading instead
but by the time I'm fully swimming
you've gotten out to tan

I know I am too much
colorful and loud
unapologetic until I am crying again alone
I care about you in a way I know you don't care the same

so instead I'll be quiet
accommodating and considerate
your own feelings placed above my own
I'll get out of the water
drops evaporating from my skin
until there is nothing left but air and a stranger
where there once was a friend

I'm guarded,
but these walls are glass:
thick like the acrylic in aquariums.
I can see through,
bang on the walls until my hands are red,
shout, but no sound ever leaves this fortress

instead I watch
as the people stare in at me;
hundreds of eyes watching me
causing my skin to crawl like insects are living beneath it

they precieve me but do not know me---
gawk and laugh and smudge the glass;
my vision to the outside becomes jaded--
blurry audience to my sideshow act---
there's something to be said about just exsisiting

I'm there with pretty patterns,
colors that scream dangerous to the natural world;
there is total lack of monochrome
bar the numerous stickers on my torso and limbs

and they stare at me appalled
while their children giggle and  point with wonder in their eyes
demanding to know what is that creature?
why it's so funny,
why it's so loud and bright and struggling to hide
when it's obviously something a wonder to be seen

they shush their children then--
saying don't look and not to point
while they raise their eyebrows in judgement and gossip to their friends later about what they saw that day
I have become a spectacle and in a way I did it to myself
trapped in the necessity of uniformity so long I started to ooze out of my clothes like sludge

it dripped into new shoes and formed someone new
I'm still learning to accept her vision in the glass when I look in the mirror
trying to find the awe of a child's eyes through the ones of an adult