My entire life

No matter where I go, who I'm with, what I'm doing, how drunk I am

I have always felt on the outside - out of the picture

From childhood's hour

I have not been like others are

I've always been

Out of the conversation, at a distance

As though I am alone in existence

Everywhere I go, there is an impenetrable barrier

At home I'm a foreigner in my own land

I've always felt like a different breed

Slowing down when others pick up speed

As if I was the only one picking up the sounds or words that others don't hear

Deaf to the words that they do hear

I do not hear what others hear, I do not see what others see

Doing, saying, thinking things that others don't

When I try to explain what my world is like,

I baffle and stutter and can't find the words

And they look at me

From the other side of the barricade

With condescending, puzzled smiles

I've never really been a part of a group, a piece of a whole

Even in my own house, with my own friends,
I've always been an intruder

Everything I say, everything I do seems offbeat

I feel like everyone is dancing some sort of elaborate choreography

And I haven't learned the steps

Or they're all playing a game

And no one taught me the rules, or let me roll the dice

I've always felt out of it,

As if I was alone on the opposite side of an enormous, invisible window

Pressing my hands against the glass, tracing worlds in the fog

A stranger looking in

I've always felt it

Struggling to break the sturdy facade

In crowded parties, sleepovers,

Lunch breaks, with my family, with best friends



But with him

I'm not an outsider

Even though we argue, or call each other names,

Or slap each other, or steal each other's pens

We understand each other

Simply

Easy

With him

There is no window, no barrier, no wall

When we talk, there is only us

Encased in a small, invisible circle

A circle I'm not excluded from

Which enclosed us, and protects us from the world

All the others fade,

And only remains this sort of forcefield

There's no plausible explanation

For this halo

Nothing logical about it

Nothing like "we just get along",

Because we don't, not always

But the circle is there

Undeniable and hopefully eternal



One day I'll trace that circle

Around us, and he'll see it

too