I know where I need constructing. I know where I need loving. I know which parts need the warmth of my own hand, and which parts need the warmth of another’s. I’m not some irreparable disaster. I need to know kindness. From my own mouth. From another’s.
It is only the possibility of never receiving it, that sends me into a panic I almost can’t come back from. That swirling despair, like a whirlpool that can only pull you into black, filling your lungs until you die. Lovelessness. And you desperately try to cling to the surface, but your hand sinks again and again. It’s this that I do, only instead of the surface, I reach to find that warmth, the one I’ve only known the absence of. I am teaching myself to catch my own hand when I reach out, but this doesn’t always save me. I think I’ve exhausted myself. My arms are tired. I worry that if nobody is there to reach for me when I reach for them, that I will drown.
I wonder if loving myself won’t last. I wonder if it is worth it, the attempts to soothe myself, to bring myself back from whatever despair has me in its grasp. I wonder if isolation will finally **** me one day. If trying to survive alone is a good thing at all, when what I need is the warmth of another. Their patience and kindness. I wonder if I’ll finally give up one day, and let myself drown in that lovelessness, and find that the only thing at the bottom of the sea is death.