god rest my soul

I am always spilling over. Always asking for too much without meaning to. Always needing too much, feeling too much, saying too much, wanting too much, caring too much, noticing too much. I can feel myself becoming inconvenient in real time. I can hear it in the pauses. I can see it in the way people go quiet when I finally stop being helpful and start being honest. I know the second I have asked for more than I am allowed to ask for. I know the second I have become a person instead of a place to put things.

But somehow I am still not enough. Not patient enough. Not calm enough. Not available enough. Not forgiving enough. Not easy enough. Not quiet enough. Not useful enough to justify all the space I take up by existing. I keep trying to make myself into whatever version of me would finally be simple to love, and I keep getting it wrong. I say the wrong thing. I say nothing and that is wrong too. I try to help and it comes out wrong. I pull back and that is selfish. I show up and it is not the right way. I disappear and no one notices until they need me again.

And everyone always seems to know exactly what is wrong with me. They know when I am too sensitive. They know when I overthink. They know when I should have said it differently, handled it better, let it go sooner, been more understanding, been less emotional, been more careful with my tone. They can name every sharp edge on me. They can point to every place where I have failed to be easy. They can remember every time I was difficult, every time I was quiet in the wrong way, every time I needed too much, every time I did not respond correctly. But no one seems to remember the other things. No one remembers what I noticed. What I carried. What I fixed before anyone had to ask. What I swallowed so the room could stay peaceful. What I showed up for even when I was falling apart.

And I hate how bitter that sounds. I want someone to notice the good without needing me to hand them a list like evidence. I want someone to remember the things I say about myself that do not directly help them. The little things. The important things. The things I mention once and immediately regret mentioning because they vanish into the air while I am still expected to remember every wound, every preference, every fear, every crisis that belongs to someone else. I hate that I remember everyone’s sadness in detail, and sometimes it feels like no one can remember mine at all. I am angry. I can feel resentment sitting in my chest turning rotten. I want someone to notice without me having to perform being broken in a way that is easy enough that they can understand. I need someone to look at me and think, she is not okay, instead of assuming I will always find a way to be fine because I always have before.

I am so tired of being useful. Being reasonable.

I am tired of being the person they come to when they need to untangle themselves. Of holding everyone’s pain and fear and panic with both hands while mine sits behind my teeth, festering, waiting its turn and knowing that it will never come. I am tired of being so good at listening that no one remembers I might have something to say. I am tired of being the safe place, the reasonable one, the understanding one, the one who will pick up, the one who will know what to do, the one who can carry it, the one who can take it, the one who will not make it about herself.

And god am I am tired of being corrected more than I am cared for. I am tired of hearing what I did wrong before anyone even says fucking thank you. I am tired of being told how I could have been better by people who choose not notice how I am already trying to be better. I am tired of my effort being invisible unless it is imperfect. I am tired of my kindness being an expectation. I am tired of the nice things I do being treated like background music, something assumed, something owed, something no one has to acknowledge until I stop doing it.

Just once. Just for one fucking second. What if I am the one falling apart. What if I am the one who does not know what to do. What if I am the one who needs someone to stay, and not because I have earned it, or because I have fixed something for them, not because I have made myself small and agreeable and easy to keep around, but because I am lonely and I am scared and I am trying so hard to not fucking kill myself.

I don’t think anyone cares enough to see it. Or maybe they do and it is just not important enough to them. Maybe my sadness is too quiet for them to hear it. Maybe because I still answer the phone, still ask the right questions, still say I’m sorry, still laugh, still understand, still soften myself around everyone else’s sharp edges, it looks like I am surviving. Maybe that is the problem. Maybe I have made suffering look too much like competence.

I don’t know how to say I need you without feeling pathetic or sounding stupid. I don’t know how to say I am angry without feeling cruel. I don’t know how to say you are hurting me without immediately wanting to take it back. I don’t know how to ask for care without feeling like I am begging. I don’t know how to be loved without doing something useful first.

I keep thinking there must be some correct way to be a person. Some exact combination of tenderness and distance, honesty and restraint, need and independence. There must be some way to speak that will not make people tired. Some way to hurt that will not make me a burden. Some way to need that will not make them leave. And every day I wake up and try again and every day I prove to myself that I still don’t know how.

I can’t get anything right.

I can’t say anything right.

I can’t do anything right.

I am always too close or too far away. Too honest or not honest enough. Too sensitive or too cold. Too forgiving or too difficult. Too much when I need something and not enough when someone needs me.

I want someone to choose me when I am not useful. I want someone to want me when I have nothing to give. I want someone to stay even when I am not making their life easier. I want someone to look at the mess of me and not immediately start searching for the exit.

But I know not to believe that could happen. Not with them. So I keep answering. I keep helping. I keep making myself soft enough to hold. I keep swallowing the part of me that wants to scream. I keep remembering the things people tell me, even when they forget mine. I keep noticing what hurts them, even when they miss what hurts me. I keep pretending I am not waiting for someone to ask the right question. I keep pretending I am not furious that no one has.