Welcome To My Head

We talked for hours over flyte, fleetwood, Marley and the bee gees,

You felt more comfortable than you were expecting so soon,

I was more relaxed than I’ve been in months,

I woke up this morning and you smiled at me, kissed my forehead and let me fall back to sleep against your chest,

We watched it’s always sunny to wake me up, I’m not a morning person,

You fixed up coffee and blueberry pancakes while I hummed Paolo nutini in your kitchen,

Inexplicably and always drawn back to you,

I want to press my forehead to yours, take a deep breath and never move

You make me hope that heaven exists,

because if you were gone,

I saw a video today entitled, how gay are you?

It asked participants to rate their gayness on a scale,

ten being all gay all day, 1 being arrow straight,

Now, as someone with a perceived sexual attraction towards kitchenware, pansexual, for any lay people out there,

this gave me a lot of confusing thoughts and feelings,

admittedly, not for the first time

I will never rate myself on a ten point scale from straight to gay,

as if two ends of a binary spectrum exist, firstly,

and, secondly, that you have to sit neatly on this line in order for people you’ve never met to be able to understand you,

as they must, of course, to be able to tolerate your existence,

I’ll lighten up, I promise

To say to someone like me, who has settled on labels like pansexual or bisexual,

to come closest to describing what they are, and how they feel, this is is a really puzzling question,

Which is a delicious irony for someone who is so often described as “confused”

To describe myself as a 5 would surely mean half of myself would be gay, and half of me would be straight, right,

So, is that the left side or the right side?

Lesbian on alternating days?

In bodily halves is that top or bottom? ;)

The gay in me would be bent like the reflection of a rainbow on glass,

A spectrum of light going backward through a prism,

my other side would be straight like an ocean skyline,

or an iPhone screen after you sit on it,

The second issue I have with this analogy is this,

What about the people with preferences?

What about the bi man who has a preference for androgynous women?

The girl who likes girls but then meets a non-binary person and falls in love?

What about the mainly straight guy who sees the latest Thor movie and gets a LOT of new feelings?

What about all the shades in between these things?

How are you supposed to describe them as one of ten options?

Ok, for the sake of research let’s try and come up with a number,

I’m going to describe myself to you,

We’re going to go full TMI right now,

and I want you to think of a number in your head, adjusting at each step.. ok? Here we go

So, what if I told you I knew I was attracted to girls before I knew I was attracted to guys?

Now I add that I lost my virginity to a woman...

The first person I fell in love with was a girl.

All getting more and more gay isn’t it?

Ok.

My first ever crush was an awkward ginger choir boy;

Now I’m going to say that I’ve slept with 75% guys in my lifetime.

My most serious and long term relationship was with a man...

After all these adjustment, do you think everyone reading this would have the same number in their head?

It’s not so simple is it?

Are we measuring this on intensity of feeling? Longevity? Incidence? Likelihood?

God help anybody who asks which sex is better,

I would say those people can get fucked, but I sincerely hope they don’t.

Is there any other situation that you can think of that you would employ such a set of loaded questions to a stranger?

If the answer is yes then I can’t help you.

I am not going to condense my whole romantic and sexual history into a neat little number,

As if to respecting someone as a person requires complete understanding of them

I get that for some people this is helpful,

When I was twelve and confused because my best friend looked pretty and I wanted to kiss her,

I used the same kind of thinking to rationalise how I felt,

It’s fine, I must be a two, a two is ok, it’s still normal.

But, I’m not twelve anymore, I’m definitely not a 2, and I’m not confused,

So, it’s absolutely fine for someone to put themselves on that line,

To identify with a number,

To take a quiz and find out because it’s fun,

But when I politely decline the question,

Know I’m not doing so to be rude

It would be time consuming and exhausting to explain that my identity,

- these funny little meaningless words I choose to sum up an admittedly short lifetime of experience -

doesn’t fit on a scale,

I don’t sit between two poles,

I am something else,

I am not two halves of two whole things,

Two wonderful, legitimate identities cut and glued back together for someone else’s sake,

I am a multicoloured other

I am a whole picture that you might never have seen before

- e.c.b

If you were to reach into my chest and rummage it would be bumpy,

To run your fingers over the muscle that beats would show you it’s mottled surface

I am much like my heart,

Tough in places, soft in others,

I am many textures,

Some experiences left grazes and some were road rash,

My heart heals itself after hurt,

marks remind me what has happened here,

a tally of things I am stronger than,

I don’t mind the scars and knicks,

The tissue that replaces is stronger,

structure and reinforcement for the next time,

The strongest parts of me are the places that have hurt the most

- e.c.b

You don’t know me, not anymore,

the ways in which I hurt have changed me like earth in a kiln, art

and I’m glad they did,

your words were fire in my chest,

the smoke from your mouth stung my eyes as you watched me cry rainforest tears,

my tears are dry now, I can take deep breaths

I liked myself before but my colours are brighter now,

The smell of woodsmoke is on my skin and hair, I breathe it in,

I know what I’ve survived and I am better for it,

You wouldn’t recognise me

- e.c.b

- e.c.b

- e.c.b

Sometimes you say something and you think you mean it,

Then later on you learn that you meant it like a rock pool,

But you can also mean things like the bottom of the ocean,

You mean it and it hits another part of yourself,

and you begin to realise that notion means something completely different to you now.

I want to kill myself,

that’s a spring breeze,

I really wish I didn’t exist anymore,

I wish I could just be gone and not hurt anyone,

not be the reason they feel sadness like I do,

that’s standing on top of a cliff at midnight in December

I really need to sleep today,

thats walking through fog,

the easiest way to not be here is to be asleep,

You can’t feel pain if you can’t feel anything,

I don’t dream unless I’m dozing,

painkillers and alcohol mean you are fully asleep,

When I say I need to sleep I mean I need to sleep,

Because being awake means it hurts so much I can feel it in my chest like physical weight,

that’s biblical rainfall in a t-shirt

- e.c.b

I think you were alarmed that I didn’t react as you hurt my feelings,

Out of seemingly nowhere you changed your mind and that’s fine,

You have every right to do that,

What you don’t have the right to do is change your mind in a matter of an afternoon,

Sit on my bed in silence as I read and then just tell me you don’t want to see me anymore out nowhere,

You were cringing as you said it like you expected me to shout at you, or cry hysterically or have any reaction other than silence,

I wasn’t going to grant you that

I felt glass come down like I do when I’m having an episode,

You triggered that and I didn’t think you had it in you,

Would I sit there and make myself vulnerable to you, ask you to like me?

I’m not a child,

I am not going let you know that you just ripped open wounds that weren’t healed from the last one

He sat there and told me he couldn’t be with me while I cried streams of hiccup tears and his face was blank,

You sat there and told me you weren’t feeling enough and I didn’t react - you were the one who looked sad,

No no you looked at me like a puppy you’d just stepped on by accident,

You really underestimate the level of pain I need to be in to show it on my face,

I’m practiced at this

On a scale of hurt you were a 4, which triggered memories of a 6, which triggered mental health conditions at a 9.

That’s what made me cry, but I couldn’t let that happen until you were gone, you don’t get to see me hurt if it’s your fault.

- e.c.b

I’m not in this much pain over a couple of boys,

Trust me,

It’s about how repeated and prolonged rejection makes you feel about yourself,

About how eventually you begin to internalise how they feel about you,

Something lacking, not quite enough, lack of spark, it’s not you it’s me,

It’s always me, not necessarily in relation to them, but they scratch at an underlying problem

When you look in the mirror and hate yourself people can sense that on you I think,

You can smile and not tell them and put on makeup and smile and do your hair and smile,

It’s like the smell of damp,

You clean around it but if you stop for a second it’s still there,

My type is depressed boys who don’t have the capacity to love, or even feel anything at all, I think,

They say you’re attracted to people like yourself don’t they, I think that’s true,

I have a huge capacity to care for other people, both feet in - I just jump without looking back,

I would give anything to be able to apply that same philosophy to myself,

To be able to hug myself at night, to tell myself it’s going to be ok, to nurture someone who isn’t going to change their mind

I really hope that one day I can love myself,

Really love myself,

In the way I have a rose colour haze over other people when I care about them,

I can look past the things I don’t like but can’t change,

No, one day I might be able to accept them or even like them,

It feels impossible - but I especially know how much things can change with time,

I want to be able to see myself and smile,

I want to look at my wrists and thighs and not wish they were open,

I think it would be easier if I just hated the way I look,

If the problem was surface level,

When you hate fundamental things about yourself it doesn’t just hurt on the outside,

It literally aches in your chest,

So you make it ache somewhere else because physical pain is far, far easier to manage

I can’t do that now,

There are too many people that would hurt besides myself and I know what the people I love look like in pain,

I can’t contribute to that,

Sometimes I wish I cared about me as much as they do

- e.c.b

I’m beginning to think there really is something very wrong with me,

Beginning isn’t true,

I think there’s an invisible sign on my forehead that says “it’s ok to hurt me, I’ll live”

You went from kissing my neck while you slept, coming over when I was panicking and opening up about your family to “I don’t think we should see each other anymore” in 6 days,

I didn’t see that one coming,

I didn’t see it coming with the last one either,

Both eerily similar and I can’t seem to learn my lesson,

“It’s not anything you’ve done”, “I Just think there’s something missing in how I feel about you”, “it wouldn’t be fair to carry it on”, it’s a script

I think I feel like a fundamental part of me is missing,

I think they can sense that I don’t like myself and it ruins it,

I’m almost enough but not quite,

Can you imagine how it feels to be so lacking,

There’s nothing “wrong” there’s just not enough to make me want to be around you,

I don’t want to be around me

You looked at me like a puppy you’d just kicked,

You asked me if I was going to be ok; I told you it was none of your business anymore,

You asked me through my silence if I had any questions,

“Do I want you to sit here and explain why you don’t like me? No I don’t” maybe that was a bit harsh,

I think you were alarmed because you expected me to cry,

I wasn’t going to let you see how much it hurt, I think that would really do some mental damage,

You won’t get to hurt me a third time, but I really wish you would

- e.c.b

Most of the time I can cope with my everyday,

I can get up and out of bed,

I can trip over my laptop that I shouldn’t have left on the floor,

Most of the time I can brush my teeth and wash my face and wonder when the last time I flossed properly was... Tuesday? I should probably do that again.

But sometimes I feel my chest get tight and the air go thin,

I feel my face start to tingle, I realise my arm and shoulders are about to go numb,

sit down, head between your knees, breathe... breathe

Most days I can put the radio on, skip it too many times and turn it off again,

I can make my lunch and take a flask of coffee to the library,

Most days I can work on my dissertation research,

maybe I do need to know what my spirit animal is,

case studies,

Kate Middleton can wear that coat if she wants to,

research that concept,

what wine pairs well with my star sign?

But sometimes I can feel my brain playing tricks on me, games that I’m aware of but I can’t stop the dice from rolling,

Sometimes colours can make me feel like a room is shrinking and the voices inside my head are shouting at me,

Red is bad, that book can’t be red, if it’s red something bad is going to happen,

Make it blue make it white make it yellow,

It has to be a happy colour, if it’s red I won’t be able to calm down

Most of the time, most of the time I can cope, most of the time I’m ok, most of the time but not today

- e.c.b

I want to lay on your chest like a newborn,

Like a tiny dog,

Like a person who needs you to love me back,

Do I love you? I don’t think I ever quite got there.

Loving someone is caring about them more than you care about yourself,

I’ve loved before but I don’t think I love you,

I don’t love you.

I really really care about you, but if I loved you I wouldn’t have left.

If you’d loved me you would’ve tried harder,

You would’ve been kinder to me,

You would have put more effort in,

You would’ve shown me.

You didn’t love me, you don’t love me. That’s ok because I don’t love you either. It doesn’t mean I don’t miss you though.

- e.c.b

She is a good person,

She is a good person who was treated badly,

Who got unexplainably hurt,

Who hurt back when she shouldn’t have but owned up and said she was sorry

She is a good person,

She is a good person who is now alone,

Alone in love but not in company,

Alone but not by herself,

Alone but will learn to fill the gap in her heart herself because she is enough

She is a good person,

She is a good person who is hurting right now,

But it won’t hurt forever,

If she can heal from the last boy she can heal from this one,

“Pain is a debt paid with time”, it’s true and she knows that

She is a wonderful, intelligent, kind and patient person. She will be ok, just not today.

- e.c.b