Part of the Adventure

Or it’s because it was entirely too true and now the person I’m speaking to is looking at me, they’re staring and it’s a horrible eternity as I’m waiting for them to respond (it’s probably only a second) and they’re staring and they’re seeing and oh God what if they no longer like what they see? So I try to backtrack but that just muddies it more and it becomes more complicated so I need to change the topic quickly, an awkward joke and a fake forced laugh and please someone rescue me from the terror of being known. (Nevermind that the one thing, the only thing, I’ve ever really wanted—no, craved—more than anything is to be seen, to be known, to be understood. Loneliness is a heaviness that drags you down beneath the waves of community; you know, objectively, the waves are crashing overhead but there under the surface you can’t feel they way they’d throw you around (the way relationships, friendships, human interaction, can throw you around, both for good as well as for bad), instead all you can feel is the pressure of the water as you float, muffled and surrounded in deceptive protection as you’re gently but insistently pulled ever deeper to where you could suffocate in crushing solitude disguised as a welcoming embrace.)

Me to me: you should not make pumpkin bread at 11 o clock at night

Me: i could though—

Me to me: you have to wake up at 7:30 tomorrow.