FoundAlongRoad

The curtains fall, end of episode
Speak one truth kept inside, overdue
Cracking a spine that’s been disused
Find newly obtained room for peace
Chain smoking watching clouds
Letting the doors swing on their own now
I’ll wait out here
Cuz I’m committed to apology
In the form of letting it be
In between
Episodes
One tendril across screens
And I bet now she thinks
Oh no I opened the floodgates
I guess what I’ll work on next
Is not bursting right in
Cuz I was already pacing..
Squeezing through spaces
That weren’t open yet

And when I touched on everything
Her and I have never said
I thought back to the careful warnings
That I’d be too much and the unassuming reassurances
That soon combusted all over us
Scattered reflections of every time before
I guess I can learn to be less

Or at least try with her now
Not shrinking but the alternative
Is every part under lock and key
At least this way I can share bits of me
And I thought about when I said
No I do turn into them –
Dirty jokes and flirting no one asked for
Manic and inappropriate
For a million reasons and more

Raised with drunken dregs
He is the clown that uses insults to get the laughs
And I use sex to get through the past
Different sides of the same coin
He was searching for validation by being cruel
To keep him from being vulnerable
Cuz we have certain same wounds
And I deflect with physical tension
Forcing a controllable connection
Cuz if they’re turned on or putting walls up
They’re not looking at the ways im all cut up
And we both always performed for the laughs
And internalized different sides
Of all the grossness
He turned away from all of that
And I tried to make it mine
Like how he drinks like the grown ups did
And I won’t touch it
We shared an ex once and she told me he () intimate
Where as I try to fuck like breathing
Our unique shared experiences
In a dark bar or a bright yard
Our adolescence
Until we were pitted against each other
It’s been silent for years
I heard he was growing
Brought to tears when I saw the poem
And I’ve just been continually unpacking
Learned behavior that I’ve long known
The other side, inside, and out of
But I still fall back into
Shortcuts to bonding
Oxytocin
Easy ways to connect without the threat
Of being known and still rejected
Even when I crave it more than life
Too dangerous
Cuz they all say it’s fine
Until it hits that line
I gotta know where it is though
Have to touch it with my fingertips and toes
Just like I have to understand every molecule of what exists
No chill bro
They think I’m soo chill tho
Cuz I don’t rage like we both used to

I see him in how I can’t say anything right to her
The one who gave that trauma to us
And I see her in how I over overshare
We used to cringe together and be embarrassed
I understand her now
With so much love
I heard you tried to be there for once
Better late than never
I still struggle trying to keep in touch with him
Though we’ve come so far
They each got one of us..
And we’ve been silent for years.