She asked me how I was doing.
She had a look to her, a sincere and open look, a look that invited honesty and expressed compassion.
It painted her face with invitation.
But it didn't just sit thick and flat like paint does.
It didn't just hang itself dull and useless around her head like a dollar store party banner.
It beamed out.
It reached a comforting hand.
It spoke, and so like a fool I told her the truth.

I told her that I was thinking about the universe.
That I was thinking about my significance as a human in its whole scheme.
My importance on this little rock.
This little rock floating as lonely and forsaken as it does around that star we named the sun.

I said I was thinking about how lonely and forsaken I felt.
Just me,
and how could a single person feel like this.
Swimming in an icy pool of his own thoughts.
Maybe these where the only things isolating me from all of my fellow men;
wrapping me in a blanket of isolation;
a blanket as thick and unforgiving as a strait jacket.
A shield.
A shield surgically attached to me,
and the weight of it's breaking me,
if I cut it away it would **** me.
The open wound bleeding out thoughts and emotions
into a ruby pool filled with letter and symbols
misspelled words and distorted swirling grease slick memories
an alphabet soup of insanity.
Maybe this is why I am alone.

I said I was thinking about love;
about who I could share it with;
about why it's important;
about why I don't feel it;
about why it makes me cry,
just as much as it makes me laugh.

I said I think about fantastic nights of true splendor;
about road ways paved with gold;
about endlessly open and kind people;
about everyone i ever cared for being with me:
Happy.
Laughing.
Like they describe the heaven I don't believe in.

I said I think about god.
About a sad man in the clouds who looks down on us in our darkest hours and seems to do nothing.

I said I think about evil,
or Satan,
or sin,
or abominations.
All of the things that seem to show up just when I feel safe to shake me and tell me to run;
run away from my comfort;
run away from my happiness;
run away from the truths I thought I found.
All of the things that shake me and tell me not to trust:
not to believe,
not to give in.

I said I think about other people.
How beautiful and serene some of them seem to me.
How some of them seem just like I am.
How I wish there was something I could do to make them feel better.
How I could sacrifice.
How I could bring them to a better place than I find myself.
How I could make myself useful, or decent.
If not in anyone else's opinion at least in my own.
How I could have an effect,
at least on this tiny rock spinning jut as alone and scared as I am
around a sun destined to destroy me.

I said I think about ending it all,
or starting over.
Becoming a different person:
a different face,
a different voice,
a different name,
a different body,
in a different place,
with different clothes,
knowing different people.
Knowing people who know nothing of who I really am.

I said I think of how I describe myself
and how its irrelevant to who I actually am.

I said I think about sadness:
and anger,
and chaos,
and i cant keep it strait anymore.

Once I was done spilling these things.
Once I had peeled back my shield and bled out for her.
She looked at me with those open loving eyes,
and without wasting a moment,
or displaying hesitance;
She Said:

"I know just how you feel"