Genetically predisposed to be overtly critical of everything
while also severely hindered by crippling social anxiety.

I've never been to therapy
nor a psychologist
not even a mystic-
and I know the last one's probably  
a fraud: but the effort is, at least, somewhere near
sincere.

Adjacent, perhaps.
 
I might even be riddled and rotted
through and through,
by the experiences that have shaped
my soul
yet I know-
that I still know nothing
at all.

If there's truth to my reality, and it's not some story I've concocted,
then the reality is that I am simply me, and I have certainly NEVER...

been to therapy.

I fall
just like a child,
in and out of melancholy

I climb a mountain every day
but I feel as if I I’m sitting at the bottom dragging my feet

I search for contentment,
for inner joy
in temporary doses of serotonin

My therapist is teaching me to love myself
I didn’t realize how bad it was
I asked her why I hate myself so much

I can see myself as a child
small and afraid
in need of someone’s hand

Now I reach out to them
I hold her close
and tell him the words I wish I had been told

There still within me
deep in my soul
behind all these years and avoidance
They still need me

I don’t have to prove myself anymore
I just have to be kind
and say the words I wish I had been told

I’ll pick up my feet
and take a few steps

So I may find myself
and forgive my faults

So I may reach a peace within my soul

So I may love my whole self and move forward

I sit and wait for the call to begin
I ponder what I'll say
or if I'll learn anything
While the dread settles in

I don't like myself right now.
I see patterns and look for answers
I'll think I might be getting closer to closure,
but in the end, only  assumptions are found.

"Why do you need to know?" She asks me.
Because I feel like a well.
The Sun appears and I become dried out,
a storm rumbles in and I'm overflowing.

People visit me rarely
each time they do, I become more empty.
They come to me because they get something
They don't stop and sit with me, they want what I function.

Sometimes they paint me,
or add a layer to my shell
They might gift me an accessory
because for them, it will help.

It makes them feel better,
when how I look brings them comfort,
They think everything changed
But I'm still a well they never visit to connect.

I'm a well that sits on a hill,
They think I'm out of reach
but I'm here, left out
Someday I'll be the well that fell.

I remember sitting in the garden of my therapists office, trying to feel the sun on my skin.
She asks me if I can feel the warmth and no matter how hard I try, I can't seem to find it.

It took me 14 years to say those few words that changed everything.
When my lips formed the whispered sentences, my shaking body suddenly felt so very different, even though the same things I was talking about happened to the same body.

When you start telling the truth, even if you can't build up the courage to speak all of it, a few words are enough, it becomes reality.
It's been real all this time, but now that it's entered someone elses mind, you can't take it back.

And maybe that's what it takes. To start your healing.

Speak your truth, even if your voice is shaking.

I'm in my villian era;
That is to say
I'm in my intolerant era
My "I don't give a ****" era
My "I don't have patience for peoples emotions and stupidity" era;

Except its not an era
It's a day
A week
It is a come and go feeling that helps me to function and push forward,
It is an intensity
A fire burning, but not from anger
It is power and control
It is a wall
It's still kind, but different, tainted
Searching for the motive, the string, the catch
proceeding wearily, lacking child-like faith.

It is the only way to protect myself,
demanding respect
To declare that statement:
"Don't **** with me"
To be a sheep in wolf's clothing
Until I feel safe enough to rid myself of this hyde.

I'm neither the mirror nor the reflection
I'm neither the presence nor the absence  
I'm neither the fool nor the sage
I'm neither the seeker nor the finder
and
I'm neither the sky nor the cage

I am someone I haven't been
since
I am somewhere in between and something unseen
But if I do know a thing
is that
I am sewing what I am with the not's that I keep clean