We both tried so hard to jump out of our boxes.
I latched myself onto your jacket, faced with your back.
I didn’t know that you were fragile too.
I didn’t understand why I’d stand on the outside of the circle
You created. I knew that I was the pain in the back of your head.
You were everything I knew. I’d look for rooms to escape to.
Run away from what connected us, ejected me, left me on my own.
I didn’t understand why it had to hurt.
I didn’t know where to go, how to vanish, and I lost my grace.
I realised everything I lost, never had or was robbed of.
I didn’t have the confidence to walk around, letting everything
Settle and sink in, talk to strangers that would be by my side
For years to come, step into rooms and take a seat, my own.
I forgot what my voice sounded like. How to move my own body.
Speak my own language and think without fear and filters.
I felt judged from the inside out and outside in.
Every time I’d stand up I’d shoot myself in the knee
Without comprehending why.
I felt so alone in my own skin, so insecure and fragile, exposed.
I didn’t know how to be myself and fell into the trap of performance.
I tried to make it fit, tried to not look for you anymore,
To reverse it all, but with every step and decision, I lost
Myself more and you observed me silently from afar, disliking
What you saw, the people I was with, knowing it would all go
Downhill from here, and yet, you said a few words, and yet,
I still felt like you didn’t have my back, you couldn’t have had it,
We stemmed from the same catastrophic source, lacking what
Should have kept us close together.
Maybe you tried in your own way to save me from myself, from others.
Our pain manifested itself in very different ways.
I remember all those hours stewing in seclusion,
Staring at walls, listening to voices, pretending that I wasn’t there,
Feel the shame arise, the pang of my solitude.
I was in dire need of the right company,
But sold myself so short to attract the wrong crowd.
It hurt you to see me like that. I know it today.
But maybe there was nothing you could do after a certain point.
None of us knew better.
Now we do. Maybe we’d do everything differently.
But then we wouldn’t be where we are right now.
Because I hold your hand in mine and I hope that you do too
Without feeling burdened, responsible and imprisoned.
Croque-Melpomene 