(I wrote this almost a year ago, and I just found it.)

You tell me
that you love me.
I’m not sure
as to whether I should say,
"I love you too,"
or “I know.”
Because I spent my whole childhood
believing in second chances
but I’ve also spent my life
believing that I never deserved them.
That praise was something
to which I would never be entitled.
That other peoples’
time
effort
company
were things I would never
be truly worthy of,
and even calories
were a foreign substance
that I would never deserve.
I have mastered the art
of filling myself
with relics of isolation
and the hopes that nobody
will get too close,
for I will surely drown them.
Suffocate them.
I can not let myself think
that you might actually care about me,
I can not let myself believe
that I am worth what you say I am,
I’m sorry.
I’m sorry that you got
stuck with me,
and that you allowed yourself
to feel something more for me
than I ever could for myself,
I’m sorry that I dream of you now
and that your name is always
in my thoughts and on my lips,
it is addictive in its toxicity.
For I fear that if I go too long
without saying it,
that it will disappear.
But at the same time
I feel as thought I say it
too often,
but I guess the phrase
"too often"
needs perspective.
I can not let myself believe
that this does not come
with a punchline,
that you do not come with
an ulterior motive,
that the beat my heart skips
and the catch in my breath
are not the product of a joke.
Because my thoughts are screaming
inside of my mind louder than my voice
could ever tell you that I love you too,
and the shrieking and shuddering sobs
that escape my lips
as blood trails like springwater
down my arms
are so quiet, I am amazed the world
cannot hear.
I am amazed that my virtually nonexistent voice
does not ring in the ears
of anybody who stops to listen
but simultaneously,
I am glad.
Glad that nobody can take
the solidity of mental illness in love
away from me.