It's a bad habit of mine, picking at the details. I know it's bad. I don't think I can help it much.
I'm just so used to falling behind.
Used to never being enough.
To holding a body so full of rage and sour.
How long has it been this way? How pitiful have I truly been?
Sometimes, my brain would rather make excuses of nonsense rather than see logic. I don't think it's very kind, but I don't much control that either.
"They're lying to you, you know. No one enjoys your company."
"You're annoying. Loud."
"You're being too weird."
But why would they seek me out, then?
Why would they choose to spend time with me so actively? Why would I have these papers to adorn my walls, these stuffed animals — Someone that still listens to me?
And yet, I fear its end. No amount of assurance can fix what a prior lifetime has broken, I fear. What phrase is too odd, too strange — Something so off-putting that it all collapses in on itself?
It's disheartening.
How I want to trust. How I want to rest.
But some nights are not meant for rest. Some nights are meant for thought. For reflection. For grief and sorrow and guttural wails from deep within the skull.
I am constantly in the process of taking class. Of forgetting, so I must relearn. I must learn to love myself again, and again, and again, and again. I must learn how to let others love me, too.
I must unlearn the shame that burdens me. The embarrassment that clutches my chest. I'm worth more than this. I have to be worth more than this feeling.
For many years now, upon shooting stars and birthday candles, I quietly wished this one phrase, repeating it to myself again and again. I wished for nothing else, hoping to any entity out there that it might just come true —
"I wish to be happy."
I think, on most days, I am now. And it feels good. But some days... Nights, rather — Are very, very tiresome.
