Do I dare?

Do I dare shatter how you portray me?
Crack the mirror
Breaking how you know me to pieces,
Breaking how you think you know me to pieces.

Do I dare drown you in my pain?
The pain of past losses
The pain of past friends
Successfully attempting their suicidal deaths

Do I dare tell you the truth?
The truth about who I am
The fact that I pretend
Put on a counterfeit smile and pretend everything’s okay.

Do I dare say who I truly am?
That I’m asexual
With continuous social anxiety
Never really sure what to do around people.

Do I dare show my social anxiety?
Pretend everything’s okay when I’m scared inside
Show you how fragile I am
Show you how shattered I already am.

Do I dare break this facadé I created?
Fracturing everything I’ve worked so hard to create
Just to show my true emotions, how I really feel
And to be laughed at by my peers

Do I dare take a chance?
To put myself out there
To care about someone
Just to have them push me aside into my growing darkness

Do I dare care for anyone?
Because the last time this happened I couldn’t save them
They died on my watch
And I had to stand by, left here with the aftermath wondering what I could’ve done

Do I dare share my feelings, emotions?
Attach myself to another
When I feel that everyone I care about
Just leaves me in the end, one way or another

Do I dare care about life anymore?
It’s already wasted on me, a corpse of a being
Already half eaten, wasting away
To the point where I feel that keeping it short is best

Do I dare tell my friends?
How I truly feel
How I hate myself for my past
Not being able to help anyone

Do I dare be happy?
“Frolick in the flowers” is what they’ve told me
“Just release your sadness”
Yet you don’t know me nor have you ever spoken to me before now

Do I dare yell back at you?
Tell you how you’re wrong
How I’ll never change
How I am who I am.

Do I dare love who I am?
Yes.
With all my insecurities and faults
I will always make mistakes
But it’s how I overcome them.

Do I dare stand up for myself? For others?
I will always try my best
Even though some people need space or push me down
I feel that I need to find courage in my broken, bandaged heart

Do I dare speak my mind? Show my true colors?
I’m not sure, nor will I ever be sure
Yet I know that my true friends,
The ones that helped bandage my heart
The ones that helped repair my shattered self
Will always let me be who I am

Thanks to all who have let me be me
But the question still stands
Do I Dare?

Step 1) Speak any language you want.
Helpful Tip: When men die, it doesn't matter what language they speak because all screams sound the same.

Step 2) Worship any god you please.
Helpful Tip: When men die, it doesn't matter what god supported them because all men fall the same.

Step 3) Pull the trigger.

Step 4) Win the war.

Step 5) Lose your soul.

Step 6) Let time pass you by.

Step 7) Forget the lessons history taught you.

Step 8) Repeat.

It amazes me how people just...lose each other.
Every day.
Carelessly, as if it's...
Doing the laundry or making lunch.
It absolutely stuns me how people can just adjust to suddenly being cut off from somebody else.
Breakups, the ends of friendships,
They...happen.
To everyone.
To everyone on earth, and I don't understand how people just keep going.
Just live their lives as if they haven't lived them in tandem with another person for...years.
As if they haven't laughed, cried,
Shared secrets and dreams,
Spent countless hours with
This whole incredible other being, who is suddenly just...
Gone.
There's not a word for how I feel, thinking that people just go on, knowing that this person they loved and treasured,
Kissed and connected with,
That this person will grow old and die someday.
How do you face that thought every day?
That they will finish their days somewhere far away, somewhere completely different,
With a family or children that you'll never meet.
With lines on their face that you'll never see touch it gradually.
With stories and joys and traumas that you
Will never hear about.
With memories that you aren't a part of.
And they'll be lost to you. And you just...
You just throw that away, as if it's ordinary.
As if it's... easy.
People just cut their ties so **** carelessly.
Watching them... Mystified doesn't cover it.
Confused. Befuddled. Dismayed. Bewildered...
Betrayed.
There isn't a word. None of these come even close.
Thinking of it, I feel the way I feel when I pass the corpse of an animal on the highway
When I hear about a dear friend whose father has just died,
When I remember how many people on earth starve to death every day.
Me, the sculptor of words,
Always with a way to try and bridge the gap of empathy,
I have no word for it.
For how utterly I do not understand the human ability to
Write off someone you love.
I've tried every single one I know
And none rings as hollow as the feeling of remembering
That people lose each other without dying.
I've turned it over in my mind
Buffeted it with adjectives
Prodded it with metaphors
Trying to find a word that approaches how it feels to realize this
But the only one
I ever end up at is
*"Why?"

like any
narrator,
i'm obsessed
with being
some one
else.