Try to Explain It

The last anxiety attack is still stuck on my lips,
parching them, reaching down my throat
to the pit of my empty stomach.
I’m never hungry anymore.
You asked if you could get me food
as I laid there, pupils wide as the moon,
shaking from the inside out.
I told you no. I told you
I think I might throw up.
But not from the tequila, no
from the anxiety.
And I’m sure you wondered how I got there.
You see, we had been fine, talking, sharing,
the same subtle things we’d done all night.
But you brought up the probabilities of loss.
You mentioned the ideas of leaving,
the weights of mistakes,
all of which clawed incessantly at the
back of my head, my eyes, until
I started to feel overwhelmed. The ideas
of losing, and hurting, and loving, all tiny
little seeds,
they began sprouting vines in my body
with off-shoot leaves full of
“what-ifs” and “how comes”.
It was all I could do to lay on the floor,
my body, vibrating with the intensity,
motionless otherwise.
I could not tell you the weight these things
press upon me,
or why my brain chose now
to entertain futures that may not exist.
All I know is
it took every single effort to keep the tears
from spilling out in waves of sobs.
I didn’t even want to tell you.
Who really wants to hand out shares of their misery?
But honesty has always been my biggest strength (and,
also, occasionally my biggest pitfall), and so
I told you I was panicking.
My brain was aching to be able
to convey the reaons and the meaning,
but you never asked.
No, you simply smiled your effortless, wide smile,
and embraced me the way I was.
You took care of me and stayed closer
than I ever could have hoped for.
What a beautiful thing it is
to expect the rain clouds,
but find the sun.

Love/Control

This body and mind are no longer that

of a fragile, little child.

So why would you have me live like that?

Why would you put safety gates 

in front of opportunities for me to grow?

The world is a vast place 

and you view it with a fearful eye.

Always watching for any speck of glass

that might cut my supposedly fragile soles.

But it’s not as scary out here

as you think.

Things are growing and changing

and each new dawn brings

more innovation and life than 

even the wisest among us imagines.

There is compassion and kindness 

that still exists among even strangers.

Why, why do you choose

not to see that?

You soak yourself in your supposedly

God-like values,

and say “The world is falling apart.”

But you stand by idly.

You are the pieces breaking off

as you blindly judge kind hearts

in the most un-Godly of ways.

The intentions started off well-meaning,

I know.

A way to protect a fragile, growing life.

Well, I am no longer fragile.

And I wish I was growing but

the stifling atmosphere of this

cinder block house

allows me no room to do so.

So I stay stagnant. And you throw knives.

Maybe, I’d like to think, you do not realize

that you throw them so often

in my direction.

Lines that question,

“Will you ever grow up?”

“How will you ever have a family?”

I can’t. And I won’t. If you keep things this way,

I will be stuck, standing in time, wearing down like a rock in a river.

You’re the river.

I am drowning in you. 

You cannot love someone so much

that they drown in your once, well-meant gestures.

That is not love.

That is control.

It breeds anger, resentment, and anxiety,

and it keeps me awake at night

wondering

if I will ever feel okay long enough

to grow towards the sun

and away from this graveyard where

my dreams

slowly, silently

perish.