Mar 2017
I always wonder what it'd be like to belong to someone
Who would actually want to have me.
I've spent so many years of my life
Devoted
To people who weren't devoted to me.
Because
Well
I need to belong somewhere.
I need someone to wake up thinking of.
And it turns out
I need that more than I need to be valued
Or understood
Or even thought of.
I need it much more than I need to be loved.
And I try, I do, to exist as an island.
Sometimes I make it months before I fail
Spectacularly.
Sometimes I even forget how much I miss love.
But inevitably I remember.
And inevitably I fall in love
With people who don't fall in love with me.
Avoidance doesn't work,
Rushing in headlong to face my fears doesn't work,
Trying to be calm and subtle and normal...
Definitely doesn't work.
Frankly, I'm out of ideas.
Time after time I face this-
The fear, the vulnerability, the shadows of my past failures which loom around me.
I stay up nights
I make beautiful art
I cry
I laugh at nothing
I spend excruciating hours waiting and worrying for no good reason
I stop being hungry for food
But wander the streets like a starving animal all night
And for the past few months I've thought,
Isn't it nice to go to bed when I want to?
To not feel afraid all the time?
To have no one whose attention and affection I pine for?
(And believe me, pine is an understatement in even the mildest of cases for me.)
Isn't it nice to just be?
And maybe I didn't feel very alive,
Maybe my life was a little empty,
And my art untouched,
And my pages blank...
But I was hungry at every meal.
I woke up mornings feeling safe.
I felt sane.
Since I realized what it meant to love another person
It has been what I believe the purpose of my existence to be.
But what if I'm just... allergic to it?
What if it just makes me crazy?
And unstable?
And unsafe?
And exhausted?
What then?
And I still believe in love so much,
But after these past years
I have to wonder whether love
Believes in me,
Or whether I've just chosen to devote myself to
One
More
Thing
That... doesn't really care.
Who would actually want to have me.
I've spent so many years of my life
Devoted
To people who weren't devoted to me.
Because
Well
I need to belong somewhere.
I need someone to wake up thinking of.
And it turns out
I need that more than I need to be valued
Or understood
Or even thought of.
I need it much more than I need to be loved.
And I try, I do, to exist as an island.
Sometimes I make it months before I fail
Spectacularly.
Sometimes I even forget how much I miss love.
But inevitably I remember.
And inevitably I fall in love
With people who don't fall in love with me.
Avoidance doesn't work,
Rushing in headlong to face my fears doesn't work,
Trying to be calm and subtle and normal...
Definitely doesn't work.
Frankly, I'm out of ideas.
Time after time I face this-
The fear, the vulnerability, the shadows of my past failures which loom around me.
I stay up nights
I make beautiful art
I cry
I laugh at nothing
I spend excruciating hours waiting and worrying for no good reason
I stop being hungry for food
But wander the streets like a starving animal all night
And for the past few months I've thought,
Isn't it nice to go to bed when I want to?
To not feel afraid all the time?
To have no one whose attention and affection I pine for?
(And believe me, pine is an understatement in even the mildest of cases for me.)
Isn't it nice to just be?
And maybe I didn't feel very alive,
Maybe my life was a little empty,
And my art untouched,
And my pages blank...
But I was hungry at every meal.
I woke up mornings feeling safe.
I felt sane.
Since I realized what it meant to love another person
It has been what I believe the purpose of my existence to be.
But what if I'm just... allergic to it?
What if it just makes me crazy?
And unstable?
And unsafe?
And exhausted?
What then?
And I still believe in love so much,
But after these past years
I have to wonder whether love
Believes in me,
Or whether I've just chosen to devote myself to
One
More
Thing
That... doesn't really care.
