mirror from you to me

somehow or other, i got left alone. i'm not sure if it was an ache in my heart or a pit in my stomach. maybe nausea. maybe nothing.

i returned to my center, and i stayed there. it's where i belong. it's where i need to be.

it's a privilege, isn't it? to be able to be here alone. to be able to be my own self, whatever that amounts to. to own an own self that can amount to anything. and i think i fought for it, but maybe by some strange quirk it was handed to me. i'm not sure.

young people. we're all just young people. and so it happens, different ways.

whatever it was that riled within me came up to my mouth, and my mouth hung upon, and i cried, and i hugged myself with clammy hands, and as my knees curled tighter up toward my stomach i noticed that i hadn't taken a breath in a while.

and that's really offensive, isn't it? to be performing your tears so mightily that you stop breathing, and then keep stopping, just to prove it.

but i'm alone. i was left here, alone. so the least i can do, the least i deserve, is to cry my guts out when i know i can't possibly be performing.

not possibly, right?

i'm always performing. because you're always there. someone is always there with me. it's a promise. it's a threat.

young people. we're all just young people. which means there are older people, about.

the tears rise to my eyes like they live there, in my face. like they're coming out to comfort me, petals upon a rain. sometimes they choke my throat, but others they appear noiselessly, eliding the friction between what i put on and what i put in.

i'd like to forget about time. i don't like looking back and seeing what used to be.

and there are people back there too. people i don't want to see. others beyond just me. but i can only control myself.

maybe fake crying isn't something people can do. not possibly. because there has to be something in you that wells, something in you that breaks. there's always something in me that breaks.

something in me is always breaking.

young people. we're all just young people. we've all got elastic skin.

the tears are real because we never see them, in other people. we never see the erosion fall. the nature of privacy, and reservation.

that's your right. and my right, if i'm to be alone, is to make something of it.

right? i've got to make something of it. of my grief. of my pain.

sometimes people want you to decide something, and so they tell you they'll just be over in the other room, waiting. but why did you have to go?

i didn't want to be alone. i shouldn't have to ask you to stay with me. i should have to ask you to leave me alone.

why is it my default state, to be alone?

young people. we're all just young people.