christmas eve, almost

Words are easy, slippery, slide off the tongue like nothing, like eels, simple and deceiving and sharp, a flick of the tail, sting. You go on talking like nothing has just happened but I feel the dog’s jaws clamped tight around my throat. Can’t breathe, not for lack of trying. Not sure where these choppy waves of speech stem from; do you just not know what to say? I try to love you but you make it really hard. I cannot love myself.

When you sleep it is so easy to breathe and be calm and understand. But the variability in your awakeness, my fear, your withdrawal, my own self-loathing make it impossible for this to just be. Is it supposed to be this hard?

So I sit here awake in this hotel room and just dissect. I cannot be just some random girl. You certainly don’t behave as if I am. But your actions just don’t match up. The inconsistency keeps throwing me off-balance. Are you trying to catch me off-guard? It seems so easy to be an afterthought in your world. I don’t want to be anyone’s stop-gap, time-filler, this-minute. I may not love myself but I have enough pride to reject that.

It gets better, worse, better, worse, slowly in increments it seems like the overall feeling improves. But just as I get comfortable, it’s like I step on a sharp rock and collapse, only the sharp rock is a snake and the venom courses through me, fear fear fear fear fear and I cannot stop it. I don’t know where these barbs come from, if it’s your insensitivity or my oversensitivity but I sometimes I feel like it is going to break me. And sometimes I know it is only making me stronger.