Getting To Know Each Other Slowly And Casually Will Be The Best Thing For Both Of Us. (Maybe You Should Slow Down A Little More?)

Tonight before we talked, I laid on the driveway thinking about what you said and how it made sense because it was true.

Because I fucked it all up like my third grade self's art class projects: never doing enough or always doing too much.

Confused and not knowing what to do, which is something I am familiar with.

Wanting to weave the right words into a blanket keep you warm on a cold windy night in October without suffocating you in the process.

Before we talked I felt paranoid like I was going to disappear within the next week and because of that you wouldn't remember my face.

So I got up, bolted through a series of thorn bushes, and came back to my house.

I whispered poisoned seeds into my cuts, which were created in my brain by my own thoughts and the advice of others.

One by one, I watched them roll off my tongue and into a wound, until they were planted across my entire body.

I took a shower and watched the different weeds sprout through the skin and grow; it wasn't special.

My body became a living garden, which I harvested after drying off with a towel, and turned them into a bouquet, tied all together with a ribbon, that I was going to give to you as a gift.

When we talked, I realized all the plants were light brown, and withered.

I threw the bouquet in the garbage when you weren't looking.

Then mumbled, told you how much I loved your hair, and made you uncomfortable.

Unconsciously performing the actions you said you didn't want to see or hear, yet.

And hating myself for it because in those moments, I had the realization that I didn't deserve you; the proof was in the shit floating around my head.

You are a wonderful person who shouldn't be having to experience my temperature swings created by my mental problems.

You shouldn't have to come up with something to say afterwards.

For the rest of the conversation, I wanted to put the hood up on my sweatshirt and hide behind it, but instead showed you items I bought earlier in the day and went through a foot/shin cramp.

You said I needed to eat more and take some B12, even though, at this point, I don't think it would help.

You said you were tired, we hung up, then I saw indistinguishable objects with secret meanings floating around my bedroom, and got depressed thinking about outcomes, instead of processes.

I knew none of these objects were actually there, and it was just another case of my brain fucking up.

Misfiring.

After we talked, I spent the rest of the night chain smoking cigs, practicing my speech, nodding off, and getting in touch with my feminine side.

Hoping that would help since I was out of B12 and cereal.

I'm sorry.

Before I went to bed, I forgot to brush my teeth; I'm going to wake up tomorrow with bad breath and a dry mouth.

Scabs

And my back is scarred.

Picking scabs with long fingernails.

Picking scabs and finger-painting what loneliness would look like on the surface of Mars on a piece of looseleaf.

Picking scabs and sleeping in a haunted house that isn’t really haunted.

Picking scabs and stapling rejection letters to my face so people don’t assume I’m a failure.

Picking scabs and branding my forearm with a hot iron rod at work, thinking: This will last forever.

Picking scabs because I watched my father do it when I was a kid.

Picking scabs.

And my back is scarred.

Forming new scars like islands emerging from the depths of the Pacific.

I take my shirt off and twist my upper half so I can see red and white spots.

I imagine them all fusing together into one wound.

And my back is scarred.

Self-conscious.

I write, HELP ME with a black sharpie across my stomach and never take my shirt off for anyone ever again.