THEY TELL INTROVERTS TO BE EXTROVERTS, BUT NEVER THE OTHER WAY AROUND

When you came into my life, I was such a mess. I confuse moonlight as daytime on the daily, I guess you can say I live my life backwards and my heart has more flat lines than I’ve ever had a sad face, that was me acknowledging my anxiety, you know, I used to be comfortable around people, I thought everybody could be my friend. I did. I soon realized how stupid I was. It’s a messed up day when your best friend sets you up to get jumped. The environment raises you, that’s correct. Nature does things to us and now I don’t trust people, that’s correct. The irony? The person who jumped me became a close friend. How’s that for a trip? Life is full of it. I had to lose someone important to gain another, I had to almost die to learn not to mix alcohol and drugs, my body just can’t handle it. I had to break my hand to stop being so fucking angry. I’m still so fucking angry. I’m upset at everything, but I still try to fake a smile. I was hurt when she said we’re best friends, but we’re fucking. I was hurt when she said it was just infatuation, he doesn’t mean anything, so we broke up and yeah, it was just a kiss, he could never give me a kiss like you could, well, jokes on me, the damage has already been done, right? So we get back together and I still hate your fucking guts, so we fuck and fuck and fuck up everything, so you learn to cry and I learn to yell and we learn to lust instead of being tender to our innocence and I know that it’s in the past, and I know it doesn’t matter and I know you’ve moved on, but unless I get this shit out tonight, there isn’t much to move on from, I need to vent and I need to yell, one last time, I’m going to scream this poetry into something I can’t love and I know you’ll read this and go, damn, he hasn’t changed, he’s upset again, always begging for more when he didn’t know how to stop, his addiction is finally getting to him and fuck, maybe it is, but we learn to be such things and learn to unhurt where we’ve been bruised. My mind works like a shoe with an open mouth, my toes are crushed by metal beams and I’ve been meaning to love me for me again, this is where you come in. You see, I’ve noticed that through all of this, through the love and the poems, through the tears and the struggle to define myself– when we talk, as simple as it may seem, you still love me. You don’t ask for details. You don’t care if I hurt myself. You don’t care if I choose to live or if I choose to die. You just care that I wake up. You just care that I try, and darling, I’ve been trying for you. Now that you’re in my life, I’m still a mess, but I’m a mess I can live with. I’m a mess that can still be cleaned. I’m a mess and I know it, everyone does. I don’t smile properly, my head is all out of whack, my obsession with drugs stems from my lack of emotions, I claim to feel everything, but it’s a complete shut down, there is silence most of the time, too many thoughts can cause this. I’m scrambled. My words jump from place to place, one minute I’m fine the next I’m not okay, I’m a heartbeat hooked onto a stack of tnt, I’ve been meaning to blow and lighting my own fuse sounds like fun, this is a poem about my passion to love so often, they all leave, but it’s mainly because of me, right? This is where you come in. You’ve proven that that idea in itself is flawed. You know about me and my temper. You know about me and why I write so often. You know why I can’t. You know my patterns. You know my addictions. You know my flaws. You know that knowing isn’t half the battle, you know that feeling is. You feel my brain for more than information, you search for hope, you always tell me, if I lived to tell a tale, you’d be so damn proud of me. Well, darling, I want to be proud of myself too. I’m trying my hardest to not let you down. I shower you with poetry because you mean so much to me and yeah, I’m sick and tired of hiding behind these fucking metaphors, but that’s all I write. I can’t be like the greats. I can’t rhyme. I can barely finish a poem without the help of disgust. I still hate myself. I’m sick of who I am, I’m still so angry. You know, sometimes I cry and I don’t even understand it. It just comes out. It’s something in the lyrics. It’s something you wrote. It’s something I felt because I’m lonely and no one gets me, but the demons in my head, they’ve been sabotaging my insides and asking me to give up and I’ve been trying so hard, I try every fucking day. I do. There’s just so much anger and I’m not sure of the source. It’s like the rain, you know it’s coming. The sky is grey. The birds are acting funny. Dogs are barking. I feel sad more often than I do angry… I’m just so sad, what’s wrong with me? I know this has gone off track and yes, I’m bouncing back and forth and yes, this isn’t really a poem about anything, but they’ll still read it. They’ll still love it. They’ll still feel it. It’s relatable, right? It’s just another poem, right? There’s so much hate inside of me that some days I wonder if I created it within myself, maybe I’m the crazy one. Maybe none of this makes sense…"