gentle writing

Crooked, imperfect, not meant for the sea. 

But did I love it still?

Did I mind its fucked up bottom, or the way it collapsed down in the middle at the mere thought of touching water?

Did I want it to touch the water?

“You’re paper,” I whispered to it. “Not meant for water. Not promised to the sea.”

“But I’m a boat,” It would say if it could.

And I would, despite my will, set it afloat in the nearest puddle I could find. I would worry that the water would swallow it whole, while I watched it swim. 

Even if it was for a few seconds, it did what it was made for. It was a boat, as the boat would have said. Who am I to not let it be one, even if its body was paper?

a word i had often heard being passed around in my circles. i knew the oxford definition that described it. i “knew” the concept.

but knowledge is not experience.

you can know things you haven’t experienced like space travel, cardiac surgery, childbirth. you can’t long for something you don’t know about- naturally, i lack examples here because i don’t know what i don’t know.

for this precise reason, i knew what the starvation of touch meant but i didn’t understand it, until i was touched lovingly, with intent, with admiration, and with a desire to not be abandoned again, by my friends.

despite having been in romantic relationships, i’ve only experienced this platonically. my family are not a fan of physical affection either. i give it, but it is not returned.

but god, is the feeling all-consuming. something that bites into you in the most delicious of ways, makes your joints crumble into gunpowder, digs crescents into your brain.

i can’t physically see my friends often now. we have lives we need to look after. but i miss the gentle calmness of their hands on my back, the way their nails would scratch my scalp in the winter sun, the way my skin would be covered in lipstick stains in random places.

(i discovered one on my ear as i went to shower one night after a long day at college. precious.)

it’s safe to say that now that i know, i long.

who put this in your head?

was it when you were yelled at for being loud? or when they said you "ate too much"? or when you were told that your dreams were too big?

have you spoken aloud since then? have you eaten well? have you dared to dream?

you were a child, a teen. at heart, you still are one. how could you make anyone see that?

it's not like the world lives to hear you out, or that you need attention in copious amounts, or that you have anything particularly remarkable to say that no one else ever has.

but then, a friend would hold your hand, sit beside you for an unknown number of hours, ask you the right questions, the simple questions. and you'd crumble. you'd realize just how much you want to be seen, heard, felt. just how much you want to not be neglected anymore.

and the silly boy you had a crush on for god knows how many years, would give you a call at exactly the wrong time. you'd be in the middle of a breakdown but you'd still pick up his call because you can't stand to let go of any opportunity to be perceived by him. even in a moment like that.

and he'd notice the tremble in your voice, and the way you'd sniff occasionally as he'd fill you in on a hilarious thing that happened to him. he'd ask you what's wrong and your tear ducts would take that as a go sign to work over time.

and you'd talk.

and in the midst of it all, your friends, your crush, that one english teacher who treated you better than your own mother ever could, they would all tell you when you were done speaking- "why didn't you ever say something?"

and you'd blurt something pathetic out like, "i didn't think it mattered. that i mattered."

and you'd watch the concern on their face get contaminated by pity. which, in turn, would shut you up for another couple of years until someone made you feel safe enough again.

and this time, you'd hope that you weren't pitied. that you were heard, seen, understood. and you held out hope like a burning matchstick on a windy day.

maybe one day the wind will stop.

the matchstick will burn.

you wonder what’s wrong with you- how a sweet little child who found the joy in every day life has now grown into an adult who questions their worth every single day.

you know it’s all an illusion, that people are not as happy as they seem to be. you know it’s all virtual nonsense, snapshots of people’s lives and not their entire lives meant to make you feel pathetic about yourself, that you’ll have your moments too even if you don’t post about them.

and just because it’s not posted for the world to see doesn’t mean it’s not real. that it didn’t happen.

you know all of that.

and it sucks to admit to your therapist how often you forget it or how angry and stupid you feel about letting yourself give in to the exact agenda the world has stitched for people like you- insecurity.

so you sit on a chair in your living room, count 5 things you can see, 4 things you can touch, 3 things you can hear, 2 things you can smell, and 1 things you can taste.

you haven't heard their voice in over 2 years now.

so yeah. maybe you can get over the worst of heartbreaks. maybe you can love people and miss them and still let go. maybe choosing yourself isn't so bad. maybe begging for love, clenching your teeth to stop the tears, and digging your nails into your skin out of anger, hurt, pain... really is undeserved.

it's okay. you can sit with it all, feel everything down to the last cell of your body, process it in any way that you can. you can heal. and healing doesn't mean not hurting. it means going on despite it all without pushing anything under the rug.

it means getting up, looking the cause of your pain in the eye, and not letting them have the power they so crave.

it's tough, but you've realized that so are you.

the minutes, days, and weeks blend into each other, making a soup. there's no chef, it just happens on its own. sometimes you begin to think that maybe there are chefs, probably too many of them. is that why it tastes spoiled? is that why time keeps passing and things keep looking like they always have? maybe even worse?

everyone tells you that nothing is stagnant. that the only constant is change. but where is your change? where is the good change? you spot and acknowledge patterns repeating in your life. you talk to your therapist about them.

she's a good woman. she genuinely wants to help you. but you don't know how you can be helped, and probably, neither does she. so you both sit in uncomfortable chairs, picking up your life bit by bit, trying to make sense of it together.

she tells you things you should probably do. she asks you questions you don't wanna know the answers to. so you just nod. sometimes you cry.

it's tough, all of it. but you're still here. you're still trying to make sense, to understand, to break habits, to grow. be free.

on some days it's easy to believe that that's enough. on most days you feel like an impostor. like all of this maybe works for others and you're just pretending that it does for you too.

i was nothing like them. they're loud. they laugh. they have friends. they have mothers who wipe their tears and patient fathers who teach them how to ride a bike. i had none of that.

i was quiet as a tree, blending into the background like dirt. no one waited on me. i was barely ever picked up. i never learned how to ride a bicycle.

where's my compensation for any of that? how do i get my childhood back? how do i heal from any of what happened which wasn't even my fault? how do i tolerate the person i have become?

you know other children smile more than you. you feel the eggshells crack beneath the soles of your feet and you’re scared to make a sound. what if they see you? what if you’re heard? will you be yelled at again? how painful would it be to be shoved against the wall one more time?

your jaw still aches when memories of a rough hand colliding with it pop up uninvited into your consciousness. you curl up in the backseat of a car you can’t cry in.

you’re 21 and you still don’t know why anything happens. you’re still scared. your anxiety now lives in every cell more loudly than your own body fluids. your fingernails have grown but the scars from your teeth do not disappear.

you know other people smile more than you. you wish you could smile back. you still don’t want to be seen or heard. what if they take away your calm from you? will they get close only to leave again?

why else would they not sit in the seats you saved? why did they leave your texts screaming for a reply for days, weeks? why did your phone never ring? you didn't want to think about it.

so you toast bread. on a low flame. let it crisp to the fullest. maybe it'll make up for the warmth you lack.

don't you see how tired i am? how i can't even hold myself up?

how i'm silently asking to be loved?