#inskinned

because i could tell my mind to cast its net to sea just so that i don’t oversaturate and pick apart something that is already good in itself. but it still wouldn’t be enough to cancel out how i come home with clean-cut versions of our conversations throughout the day and mental notes of how she remains silent whenever a certain topic is brought up and how it only gives me an inkling of how dark she lets her corners become and how there are days where she’d wear a darker shade than usual on her lips and i’d be the only one to notice just like most of the little things she does that i manage to pick up on.

but writing about her feels like trespass. like the universe is telling me that my words will not wield this lifetime to be the one where she feels the same way. 

because i remember how the mention of ‘love’ makes her nose flare and how her cheeks can turn the shade of sunrise pink when she laughs and maybe letting me remember all these things about her is the universe’s way of being kind to me -- almost as if to say that this is the closest i can get without making a mess of a good thing.

i’m scared of having hard conversations so i slip into my stepfather’s language to shield myself from the damage that could be caused by my words. when i told them i loved them, it was ti voglio. i love you. when they left, i wrote my heartache in italian. mi manchi. i miss you. per favore non farlo a me. please don’t do this to me. ti voglio. i love you. 

 now, a month and a half later, there are so many unspoken words rising up in my lungs, threatening to choke me and the only way i would ever say them to you is in another language. but the only thing stopping you from knowing is a translate search and your own stubbornness. you know my shattered glass tongue, you know what my steel-tipped words can do to a heart that isn’t prepared.

 ti amo ancora.

 i tell you she loves you with all the conviction my weary mouth can muster but i don’t tell you that i do too. i don’t tell you that i tried so hard not to hurt you and i fucked up anyway. i don’t tell you that the butterflies have sprung back to life and i just want to swallow the acid back down to kill them again. 

 your lips form the words “i want to protect you from the bad in this world” and i laugh and blush and tell you i’m fine because if i don't, it feels like giving up. it feels like letting my shield crack under the stress and letting you see my heart bared and armor gone. there’s a reason i have never let anyone see me naked. it feels too much like a promise, a declaration of trust without restraint, and i have never been able to give that to anyone.

 but i felt like maybe i could trust you with my vulnerability, put myself in your hands, let you toy with me however you wanted, but you took that opportunity to twist your fingers into my rib cage and crack it wide open. and it is not your fault. your hands didn’t know any better. but i am still placing myself deliberately in your orbit, knowing that i will get hurt, knowing that your brightness will drown out my darkness. 

you joke about wanting someone to hold and i laugh along with you, trying not to tell you that i am here, i am open and willing, just please look at me and do not see fire and brimstone, do not see the blood staining my hands, do not see the way i would let you have all of me if you just asked.

I think I’m having a mid-life crisis at 20. Can you even call it that? I’m a wreck, I promise you that. I’m confused and angry and dazed and upset and I don’t even know why. Why am I always so angry? I thought I’d have achieved so much more. I’m so jealous of people that have. I want to be more for my parents. I want to be able to make them proud.

My biggest nightmare is not being able to live my life. I’m scared I’ll end up a slave to the patriarchy, trying to maintain a family but giving up my dreams because of it. I want to be more. I want children but I want to live like a man gets to live. I deserve to be my own rich man. I deserve to never have to clean or cook or take care of a man unless I want to, I deserve to live a life that my parents told me I always could because I’m a partner not a wife. I’m not what you think I am, I promise.

she’s screaming for help, she’s screaming for understanding but you turn a blind eye like she means nothing to you and she tries and tries and tries but it’s all in vain because you’re just using her till you find the next and i’m sure it must be fun to laugh at her for the things that mean so much to her but to give her nothing in return for how you’ve made her feel isn’t anything that she can sum up into words.

because when she cries into her pillow at night because she doesn’t feel loved enough. because she feels like she could disappear and who’d even care. because she feels like you look at her like she’s temporary and all she wants to be is permanent but she’s never going to get what she’s fighting for. because she’s dealt with pain that’s worse than what you give her but she thought that this one was the one that was real but pain will come no matter where you go.

I’m sorry, honey. I’m sorry I’ve forgotten who I am. I’m sorry I’ve forgotten the life I used to lead, a social butterfly that somehow found herself back in her cocoon, I’m sorry I’ve been busy. I’ve been too busy being in love.

If I was to tell you that heartbreak creates insanity, creates creativity, creates my passion - you’d say I was crazy. I’m crazy now and I was crazy then, crazy for him, crazy for me, crazy till the end. I’m sure that my heart is only full until it breaks, drain me empty, teach me the ways of loneliness, I’m too far gone but you are not and trust me when I tell you that love is enough because I’ve spent my days writing about sadness and now... pen and paper cannot create magic together because sadness isn’t my existence yet happiness still isn’t and I’m tired.

“Why are you tired?”

I pretend that I am put together, that my life isn’t just waking up and stumbling through the day until I can get back into bed again and I am tired of pretending I am tired of acting I am tired of the ache I just want someone to ask me if I’m okay.

I didn’t think I was meant to be loved. Not in the sense that I wasn’t meant to feel love, to experience love... in the sense that I would never get to keep love. Or that love would never be enough for me. Maybe it still isn’t. Maybe I still have “fragile: handle with care” written on my forehead,

i think my heart is a minefield of sorrow, of lust and love and reckoning.

You see, I’m wasted in love. I was only ever sober in lust and my heart a minefield of sorrow, of regret and heartache and now all I can do is stay waiting for the day that our love isn’t enough for him anymore.

“How is he?”

He’s incredible. Like the light at the end of the tunnel but brighter. He shines brighter than I ever could, than I ever dreamed of. He’s a gamble, and I may be the world’s biggest fool to fall for a man like him, with his softness that makes me quiver, his face that makes me forget the slightest whisper of ache, his hands that fit in mine like the last piece in a jigsaw puzzle we only dreamed of solving and I’m content.