a.n.a

you’re not supposed to microwave plastic but i am too lazy to get a plate for my leftovers so I eat them out of the tupperware, hot and tasting of the container. There is a month where I spent three weeks in my pajamas, only leaving the house to walk my dogs. Now I wake up to calls from my mother saying, you can’t go on living like this. every conversation we have turns into me hanging up and screaming into my hands for 5 minutes. i make a mistake at work and spend 20 extra minutes in the shower, working up the energy to get out. i am always questioning if this is a normal way to feel. I am always asking myself how much of me is normal and how much is a symptom. On the night I run into the street and then come home to bang my head against the bathroom wall, you ask me what is wrong. I say loneliness. I say new city. I say, it’s too hard to talk. I say I’m tired. I say, let’s forget about the bump on my head in the morning. In the morning, I run my fingers over the purple shape on my forehead and think, what have I done to myself? What will I do to myself? Will I survive?

I tell you I have to go. I don’t really want to leave, I just want you to think I do. I just want to take those few steps away to see if you’ll ask me to stay. I would stay. Tell me to stay.

Baby, I have no idea how this will end. Maybe the equator will fall like a hula hoop from the Earth’s hips And our mouths will freeze mid-kiss on our 80th anniversary. Or maybe tomorrow my absolute insanity Combined with the absolute obstacle course of your communication skills Will leave us like a love letter In a landfill. But whatever However Whenever this ends I want you to know That right now I love you forever.

I’m sorry that I’m so closed that my laugh is so empty and my smile is so cold and my mind is so full even when it’s not and my world is falling even when i’m sitting on the floor. i’m sorry that my mind will change every other day and that my concentration refuses to ever stay. i’m sorry that i’m lonely even with you by my side, and that i like to keep the conversation going long after you say goodbye. it’s just that i’m afraid because i’m falling oh so fast. it’s just that i am terrified that this won’t ever last. it’s just that this is who i am, whether or not you are around. it’s just that my whole life i’ve been searching for stable ground. i’m sorry that i’m falling and i’m clingy and i’m soft and i’m sorry that i fall so much harder when i’m lost and i’m sorry that i need to be constantly reassured that things are okay and you’re going to stay and you are mine and i am yours.

I want to be known as carefree and gentle, kind and loving, warm and vibrant, soft and strong, quiet yet firm, graceful and elegant, adventurous and intriguing. But instead I am careful and sensitive, too kind yet too inconsiderate, cold and dull, soft yet weak, too quiet and too loud, gawky and clumsy, afraid and panic stricken. I am constantly at war with this person I am, trying to rip away my shell and build something new. But in the process, I am only damaging my soul, creating cracks in the person I am. And it scares me, how I do not know how someone so damaged, so incomplete, could ever be close to something great.