Unwanted Suitor

Everyday I get older and I understand the world a little better. And yet I never have any more control over it. Any more effect on it.

I am only biding my time. Getting older. Understanding more.

Eventually, I'll have to do something about it.

That sobering moment when you are brushed by death. Only by proxy; a tragedy twice removed.

But you see different, taste different, feel different.

Confronted by the fragile state that is humanity. When death is more than just mortality and morbidity.

Floating without even grief to hold your heart. Unbroken and unsure.

I was told I needed to learn to sit with my grief. to hold its hand and mother it. to allow it to exist within me.

But I don't think I can mother anything, not even myself. I sit beside my grief, hand in hand. We're staring at each other. both wondering why we're here.

Sometimes when two people are broken in the same way their jagged edges fit together

They are often less than a minor inconvenience.

I wipe them from my brow like sweat. Pluck them from my head like stray hairs. Toss them to the corners of my room.

The more persistent may take hold of my nerves.

I conjure imaginary fire to burn them away. Lock them and boxes and toss them from my window. Slap them from my skin like pesky bugs.

Only active movement can banish them. It's a temporary fix though. They still inch into my head waiting to pounce on me with violent scenes and repulsive images.

My thoughts aren't always my own, but my actions are.

I thought I knew what I was getting myself into

I thought I could be good for both if us.

I thought the butterflies were anticipation

But now I feel like I'm using you to get over my own insecurities

I'm not good at the whole girlfriend thing

I'm scared to see you as mine

Maybe I just need some practice

Maybe I just need some time

If I mess this up it's not your fault

After all my problems are mine.

I don't consider myself particularly religious.

But I think I might understand why rural areas are so full of superstition.

Not out of an antiquated idea of ignorance.

But because if you've ever seen dawn bleed red into the dying breath of a bright white night, then you'd know God too.

My biggest fear

My biggest fear is the fade of feelings between two people. When you know someone so well, you can guess the next words out of their mouth. When the feeling of their hand in yours or their arm around your shoulders is more familiar than your own skin. When you could have picked them out of a crowd from any angle. When they call you because the tone of your texts changed and they wanna make sure you're alright. When the sound of their voice is clear as day in your dreams. when the smell of their shampoo brings back a hundred memories. When their hopes and dreams are the goals you work towards.

Somehow, suddenly, there's space between you. Someone else is higher on their list of priorities. The Space and time they asked for just to get themselves together stretches long and silent between you. When the constellations you memorized in their freckles fades to a random spatter of dots. When the hundreds of shades of color in their eyes fade to solid rings of primary color.

When every little thing you spent time learning about them fades, your brain un-learning its favorite things. When the connection you felt so easily between you sputters and dies even when they're sitting right across from you. When you have to start wondering “should I tell them this?”, “can I tell them this?”. When they don't come to you with their problems and you're too nervous to tell them yours. When you go from seeing them every day to every other week to “I saw him a couple of months ago”. When they used to be your best friend and now they're just a stranger whose secrets you still keep.

Sometimes I catch myself not breathing.

No air filtering in through my lungs.

My brain fuzzy and slow without it.

My chest still and my shoulders hunched.

Like some subtle subconscious part of me just decided this was it.

Time to give up.

What I wouldnt give to feel the static in my limbs again.

For as much as it makes me jump and twitch at least I can move.

For as distracting as my restlessness is at least I am not still.

Not frozen by the empty space between my skin and my bones.

Left hollow by the absence of motivation; Of want for anything.