What a terrible shame that I have such specific taste in people.
There are so many great ones.
So many attentive ones.
So many who would admire me, touch me, listen to me.
And yet at the end of the night I am lonely, not because they leave me behind,
But because I leave them behind, to wait for the few people I know I can learn from in the ways I need to.
The problem is, I seem to spend most of my time just...
Waiting.
I could be that person laughing in the bar,
I could be one of a crowd, talking,
Unhindered,
Unburdened, for the moment, by solitude.
But I am so horribly magnetized. I am so horribly aware.
And I go where I am pulled by whatever sleeps inside my bones, that stirs for certain voices but not for others.
I follow their echoes down alleyways, and at the end of the night,
I have walked alone for miles, and told not a soul my thoughts.
Because in truth, my taste for people is not only specific.
It is venomous.
It is bitter.
It is what tears taste like, or rain, when you've been bowed beneath either in silence and the drops roll down to kiss your lips.
And perhaps the sadness, I could handle. Perhaps I could accept these moments of clarity as transient, as all encompassing in their brevity.
But,
See,
The worst thing isn't to follow and be left behind.

The worst thing is choosing not to follow.

To turn and quietly take my leave, and stay silent, and ask no questions,
Even when they crawl up my throat like smoke, raw and urgent.
The worst is to feel a sudden spark of connection in a liquid world, that slides over my skin like water,
And then to watch it fizzle out-
Puzzled, always puzzled, and always, like a child,
Surprised.