~September 5th, 2017~
~Sometime between 10 and 11PM~

Her:
You're an empath.

Me:
I guess so.

Her:
Have you ever thought about it?

Me:
Being an empath?
I never knew there was a name for it.

I never knew there was a name form my kind of pain analyzation. Like I have some kind of supernatural power to read into pain of all kinds.

Her:
Is it that you understand other people's pain or your own pain or both?

Me:
I think I’ve always done both.

Her:
I had a feeling.

Here we go.

Her:
How does it affect you?

A loaded question, and being the person I am I answered it the only way I knew how:

Me:
I always get this feeling that when people are sad or hurt, I have to be too.
Sometimes it’s just my way of showing that pain is just something people have.

But mostly, it makes me helpless to stop other people’s pain.
I get sad, like some kind of way to share the pain that isn’t even mine.
And when it is my pain, nobody can seem to understand it fully.
And it’s not like I completely understand someone else’s pain,
but you see and hear a lot when you turn silent for awhile.

Lots of people try to say that people aren’t alone when they suffer.
And most of it is comfort.

But most of the time I see people in pain, and I don’t see a reason to comfort.

I see more of a reason to just be there.

Experience something beyond yourself.

There a certain type of selfless peace that comes when pain is no longer just one person’s fight.

It’s not about being together in pain. It's about experiencing life with pain just passing by.
It’s been said in books, “Pain demands to be felt”
I don’t know, something about that makes me wish I could do more.

But yeah,
I’m empathetic a lot of the time.
Maybe that’s why I stick around even when I shouldn’t.

I stop. I've said enough.

Me:
Sorry, I’m rambling...
That’s a ton of text.

Silence

And for a minute, I wonder if anything I say is being understood.

Her:
The way you speak is beautiful.
I'm marvelling in it.

... I sit in awe. Grasping at a full acceptance of the way I convey myself in feelings, but more importantly, here, in this moment.

Her:
You speak poetry.

Me:
No wonder I’m a poet.
It’s like destiny or something idk.

Part of me wishes I would have spelt the whole phrase out, it has the same amount of syllables.

Her:
I'm here for you.
I **** at comforting and that's not what I want.
All I want is for you to know that I am present.
And sharing the fight.

This, THIS right here, is companionship, and friendship, saying that "I can be here", and that will be enough.

Her:
I want to fight with you.
Even though I'm not very aggressive.

Hearing this said, "I want to fight with you". Not "I want to fight for you". This says more than any kind of battle with someone at my side, this is real, in this moment.

Me:
Hahah, we’ll fight it with music or something.
Doesn’t have to be aggressive.
Faith, hope, the essentials.

We're believers in things like love, God, and good songs that rock the world... and we don't need much more than that.

Her:
That said, music can be aggressive.
But we'll stick to the essentials.

We'll stick to our guns and hopefully, we won't have to fire.

Her:
Please know that you can ramble to me as much as you like.
I love it.

I know... me too.

Her:
Goodnight, love you.

And as we come to an end, we fall back into a small but familiar silence between us.

Me:
Goodnight, love you too.

-End-

I read it
a few times
and then again
and again and again
even though I do know
you really, truly miss me.

My face lit up so bright when I saw my notifications.
I am not ashamed to admit how excited I was.
Definitely worth the wait.
The music chiming a song that reminds me of you.
That absolute feel good song you hope plays in anticipation.
The wait of reply.
Rewinding the moments back to when I first heard my notification go off again and again.
You really know how to reach into me and pull out the biggest kid.
Driving myself insane waiting on my phone to chime in.
No one else in my contact list has your ability.
No one else could have the ringtone I set just for you.
On the lowest setting of screen brightness, you fill my screen with all shades of hue.
Sometimes I think it's weird.
Hearing the highs and lows of your voice over text.
Our extreme use of emojis.
Searching for the comfort of each others voice when we can't fall asleep.
Although distance seperates.
I can safely say.
That you've truly made my phone a life line

If you think you're
the only boy
to say that,
you are
very
wrong.

so he had my number because we met for tutoring on Wednesdays after class but he would text me really late at night asking me the weirdest stuff i would politely say this is incredibly inappropriate and i would not like to talk like this with you but still around two am he would text me lewd stuff again and again then asking if i would go on a date i said dude i am old enough to be your mother imagine if
a guy
          received texts
          like that
                    from a girl
                                  insisting to do ****** stuff BUT
he
would
have
liked
it.

It's 1:00 am on Friday night after we've hung out for the second time this week
Not for the first time, I open my phone to a 150 word text explaining that my words chaffed you the wrong way and you were not pleased with me
The problem is that this time I was not feeling love for myself
Today I felt ****** and then you made me feel like a ****** person
Two different things
I feel ****** because lately my life has been on pause and I've merely been existing instead of living
I feel ****** because I no longer find the joy in simple things
I feel ****** because I'm both alone and lonely and I feel shut out by the world
It's 1:05 am on Friday night after we've hung out for the second time this week
and I've just finished reading your text for the fifth time while contemplating a response and that's when I started to feel something
I feel like a ****** person because I forgot that you have the tendency to overthink and overanalyze every word ever said to you while I have the tendency to underthink and under-analyze my thoughts
I feel like a ****** person because, at my lowest point, I opened 150-word text highlighting all the flaws in my personality
I'm happy and sad about your way of expressing yourself
Happy because of the level of comfort in our relationship that you feel the need to give me a performance review.
Sad because as I read this and know you expect change
Sad because I sit here knowing I failed you
Sad because I feel ****** 200 days out of the year and on those days, the extra effort just eludes me
Sad because I don't know if our friendship can survive on such a forced diet
And when it withers, I'll know it was me and I'm sorry for the inevitable.