My mind is starting to erase the parts of you that made me dream- the parts that opened up my brain to the outside world. The familiar parts that never hesitated to make me feel safe at home at any destination.
Sitting across from you now is different. We are still able to spark up those friendly laughs and conversations. They are genuine too, only because they are all that are left to grab ahold of, so we grab them with both hands and we hold them as tight as we can.
Between our giggles there is occasional silence and that silence haunts the back of my brain. We both look at each other straight in the soul, almost as if we are both begging and pleading for something else to be said or another laugh to escape, so we don't feel so alone together. That silence scares people like us because we are unsure of what lives there.
The creatures that lurk in that silence are so foreign and so unknown, but yet they are there because we both have put them there. These monsters live in those occasional silences- they live in those moments when we exchange empty-eyed glances from across the table. Though they are brief, they are still there, and it is in those moments I begin to feel the most vulnerable. It is only in those moments where I feel like I have the most to lose.

I feel the tears trying to push
themselves out from
behind the swelled pouches
of my eyelids
And then I remember that no matter
how much I want to release
these prisoners and set them free,
they will always be held captive
In the dark depths of my
always-empty soul

Rip me to pieces;
Eat at my core, but I would still invite you stay
if you wanted some more