Wish you could
read my mind.
So you could see
my thoughts.
Feel what I feel.
Show you my vulnerability.
My heart longs for your
love so tenderly.
You will see my soul
in all its sensitivity.
My flaws are not
just sweet poetry.
If you could only see.
My thoughts without
hiding my fragility.

dreamt in strange shifting blocks, interwoven and with startled faces, sentencings spoken wordless. woke up to the blurry thought:

sometimes in talk, i am confronted with ideas that in no way reconcile with my own structures. in response, i often choose to not say anything, or let it uncomfortably sit in my gut. in cases where the opposing point won't be heard, i suppose this is alright. but, when my own rooted beliefs are challenged in a valid manner, it is more akin to the silence of shame than of dignification. is this symbolic of the internalisation of a more sound philosophy, or inability to process it against the grain of my own?

avoiding argumentation where it is of little purpose is one of my prime conversational aspects, and in an overarching paradigm avoiding unnecessary speech in general. but what internally portrays as tact can come off as indignant coolness, or bitter indifference. so, do i continue to speak in only the meaningful outer lashes, or let down the floodgates to some degree?

human interaction doesn't need necessitate grave importance at all junctions, and sometimes the most comforting talk can be of nothings (which i still find myself often party to, despite my self-portrait of filtered short-spokenness).

how do i open myself more to accepting or understanding when points are more sensible than my own, and integrating them into my consciousness? for, surely, if i disavow myself from giving up dated sentiments, i shall truly stagnate.

we were wandering down the side of the highway, pickin' blackberries on the way back to the car. this'd hit my mind many times over the past week, and will probably continue out into the future:

there's somethin' ticking away in there, makes me shrink away from humanity, despite the loneliness i ain't wanna amplify any. words i need to say crop up, out of the blue mist of living, and internally i make all the motions to spread 'em out, see the way my hands, lips would move, in exact musculature sweeps. but it don't follow through.

is this leavin' blues? that if i shrink away from those who care, it'll be easier to let go once more? or just an excuse for laziness (fairly sure 'twas for the last month or so, last city)? if i swore i'd love equally and with open heart, why can't i keep eye contact, even with my own cousin? is this penance for all ashamedness i can't slip from my hands?

i'm full of excuses and few good ones. i am changing and learning to let go, but understand that perhaps i need to learn to hold on a little better. is it possible to figure it out before true wrenching loss colours my palette? or is it necessary to keep shedding skin to find meaning?

don't know how to express fully how much people mean to me, and can't seem to do anything in a half-measure. is it okay to settle for flawed motions, to prevent from seeming bored? to act as i see through in others, find of little use; is it instead endearing, or even just to confer base notions in a derobed manner?

how do these shells come away? how do these walls tear down?

sat in the back seat, watching the hills cladding SH2 go by, with a tightened silence all over my face, couldn't help reflect:

sometimes it digs deep down into me, thinking of all the conceptions planned out that i was considered to have aligned with, but can't bring myself to think the same. to what degree am i the image of failure in all my leader's and follower's books? all simply for abiding by ideologies that seem to occur naturally.

but, am i failing myself and, transitively, failing more critically henceforth, if i disavow my own convictions for sake of demonstrating love to those i care the most for? is it worse to disappoint my parents, who've thrown large parts of their lives to the wind for my sake; my friends, who've laid down their loyalty for knowing, mutually assured, that collectively our virtues are assured; to weaken strength or trust in other's eyes for the sake of my own moral solidification?

or to let my very self evaporate slowly away, a puddle left out under the bright light pouring from their hearts?

Girl No. 1 wears her jeans cuffed and hates everyone but the Jets. Her voice is honey-thick around biting words. Smiling does not come easy to her. She wears her face like a mask—big glasses, big eyes, big quiet. When I see her, she lifts her hand in a grim wave, delta creases in her brown palm. Her excuse for her silence is that she’s boring, but she’s not. She dots her eyes with tiny stars and listens to German orchestra whenever she can. She thinks she has buried herself well, but bits of her still protrude from the topsoil, aching to be known.

Girl No. 2 is grey flannel and deliberate sentences. Her hair covers her face, yet when she speaks about trees and animals and the hole torn in our atmosphere by ultraviolet, ultraviolent rays, she is thunder. I gave her lotion for her cracked hands one time. When we smiled at each other after, we knew at once we were part of the same club. Girl No. 2 never corrects people when they forget her name. They say Kaitlyn, Kaleigh, Katie…let the word drop as if it were no more important than a used napkin. I hate it. I pick her used napkin name from the floor and smooth it over my lap. I say it right and she replies, with perfect seriousness, thank you: Thank you for the correct pronunciation of my identity.

Girl No. 3 is a hard one. Look at her once and you’ll see Maybelline lashes and a glass-cutting face. Look twice and you’ll see more. The sag of her shoulders, the stinging weariness of posturing for people far beneath her. I startle her. I’m too inquisitive for her taste. She does not want the world knowing her mother drank three liters of ***** before driving off a bridge, that her favorite color is celery green, or that anorexia and anxiety stalked her through the halls of high school like a pair of vultures. She wants to stay in her castle of ice, but it has imprisoned her. You poet, she teases me. You right-brained heap of color and sensitivity. You’re too much. I don’t know what to do with you. I ask her who she is and she recites her answer. 130, 125, 2315. But this girl is more than her IQ, her weight, or her SAT score, and when I tell her so, her Maybelline lashes are ruined.

If I show you my
vulnerability.
Would you take over my
insecurity.
If I tell you my
history.
Would you stay
officially.
If I put my heart
in you.
Would you trust me
consistently.
If I open up
to you.
Would you understand
my fragility.

In a room full of people, you're reading our words,
Silent, to yourself, alone.
Because bearing the stress of talking aloud,
Is much harder than sitting on your own.

And when we let you in, it's all the way.
We keep ourselves safe, but we have to say,
The ideas from within, the shadow or light,
Can comfort a stranger or set things right.

Our words have reached you,
       they've made you see more,
And understand better than you could before,
In a form that can never completely remain,
       untouched by the heart of it's writer,
We share this very real part of ourselves,
While the audience glows, ever brighter.
And vulnerability opens a door,
pulling strength on the strings of a lyre.
Our melody and lyric, not wanting for more,
Can raise each of our readers up higher.

Hardened exterior ever so slightly
More of a facade, a mask.
Sheltered tenderness
Seldomly shines through.
But ask me?
It most certainly is not true.
This feeling, so unnatural
And surprisingly poignant too.
It seeds a knot in my throat.
Powerless.
Weakness.
I will not let them collaborate with me
For I cringe, as this cannot be.
I know,
I should not be this way,
But for now,
I am going to stay.
I do not have the courage
You see,
To face and claim this thing
Called vulnerability.
But one day
Just maybe...
My arms will be open free.

I feel I am a true educator
Standing in front of my class,
And the time slips away.

A teacher when I fake a smile
For the sake of my students;
Unwilling to cry in front of them.

An instructor at heart
When I am willing to
Show that I am human as well.

A teacher in vulnerability.
Personable in profession.
Tenderhearted in being.