Immunity

Closer to You

I feel it in my bones

Even when I'm alone

---

My mama used to tell me that hanging out with Sofia was bad for me. She told me that I would end up being 'one of them'. It took me a while to figure out what that meant.

When I started feeling like this, I felt ashamed. It was forced in me to be a certain way, or else my soul was doomed. No pre-teen understands that when people tell you that, they aren't looking out for you like any adult would. By 'trying to avoid your soul getting conditioned to a forever in hell' they are conditioning the life you are living right now to be the exact same. It's repression. It's hate.

And yet I still can't say it out loud. I'm still afraid that if I do, the small child in me who still believes will be doomed in the afterlife. I'm afraid that I will look in the mirror and see a different person, even if this is who I've always been.

So I question, and I question until the letters and words start to mash and everything is a blur. On one side is hate, on the other is freedom. On one side is colors and fear and the other is darkness and safety. On one side is my family, the image I've worked so hard to build. On the other is love. On the other is me.

I'm fed up with thinking like this. About this. Every time I feel like I've come to peace with the topic a rope ties around my neck and forces me to choke on it until I'm crying and screaming that I could never be that way. That God's love only goes to a certain extent and this is way over His line.

My head is fucked up. I have been for years and I don't think it will ever change. Because I can't change myself and nobody was ever there to help.

Sofia calls me late at night. She does that from time to time. I pick up like I always do. I'm only listening to half of what she says, some rant about library books.

Sometimes, since that first time at the coffee shop, I feel like she pushes me away. I don't get why. When we are together, sometimes, I see flashes of guilt passing her face and she closes off. I'm afraid that if I ask she will go away for good.

"Are you feeling good?" she asks when I spend too much time without making any noise. I was cleaning off the traces of mascara that was starting to stick to my cheeks.

Sofia was always good at sensing when I was off. I never knew how. If it felt like some tingle on her nape or if it kept going while we were apart. It didn't matter because I was grateful for it now.

"No." And when she doesn't answer and I start hearing the thoughts fill my head again, for the first time I ask her to stay "Please keep talking. It helps." When she was talking, the background noise didn't matter. She was everything.

Sofia kept talking. And I kept listening. I listen until I fell asleep and the next morning I found out she didn't hang up. She told me it was in case I woke up and needed her to keep talking. I paid her breakfast for her troubles. And to see her sleepy smile.

It didn't matter if she tried to push me away. She won't be able to. I'll hold my ground and wait. Because she does things like this and I just want to get closer to her.

---

And the things that you say

Only make me want to stay