hiding inside a poem, but i'm just trying to be honest with myself.

neutralities are easy to swallow down. the texture even, the temperature fine. i reach for good things shyly because sometimes joy is too sticky. i have to wash it away the moment i touch it so i don't panic from the sensation. i try not to be so picky about elation, but it's so easy for happiness to become a horror for me. my body can't differentiate between the joy of surprise and some inescapable terror. anticipation costumes itself an anxious mess in my wobbly limbs. when my heart is racing from excitement, i'm overwhelmed by the swell in my chest. it feels like it might engulf me. so tears well up in my eyes as i wait for the devouring that never comes. but i'm trying big emotions in small bites these days. i'm struggling with the feeling of contentment on tongue; there's an uncertainty that lingers in the flavor of it. they say i'll get used to it in time. they say relief is a taste i can acquire.

the heart, which makes a senseless plunge to hope, it surges to the crux of a setting sun on impulse, deludes itself with the delight of whims some icarus, it holds and soars until it plummets it smiles, it weeps, it falls to its death in love.

i am, unfortunately, a ridiculously sensitive creature.