this feeling hurts more than I thought it would

and it's something you help me with - it's maybe the thing you help the most with

your rainbows are everything to me

your quiet support will always be loud, eardrum-bursting (to me)

to the me that matters

to the me that cares about that

but right now I'm me - the one who isn't allowed to feel those kinds of feelings

I'm the me who doesn't feel anything but alienated 

from my community, from my generation, but mostly from myself

isn't that strange? that I can feel isolated from the person I always am?

that the body I live in doesn't even feel like i'm in it?

it's crushing me tonight

when I say I want you, now, I don't mean you - I mean her - the one I should want, the one I'll want forever

(I think?) (I think?) (I think.) 

want her to make me gasp

want her to sit me in her lap

pull soft sighs from my lips

want her to be gentle with me, rough with me

however she wants with me

mostly, I just want

(in a way I can't talk about to anyone)

(in a way that i feel like everyone has already had confirmation of except me) 

something that's not me

the loneliness is a bitter friend these days

because it reminds me that i should already know how to do these things

how to be close to someone

how to touch without being scared

but i don't even know who to touch, let alone how

god, why can't i stop projecting my own insecurities onto someone else's relationship?

i've watched you fall in love so - what, that's supposed to be a replacement for the happy ending i wanted to have?

do i not deserve it?

...what could i have done not to deserve it?

...

...don't answer that.

i'm supposed to be content to watch you grow old together in the simple joys of domesticity

while i waste away among misread expectations and classless people together out of spite

how is that fair?

how is it fair to keep me locked in this purgatory of confusion and frustration

without even words to describe the way i feel?

hell, i don't even know if what i feel is what i feel anymore

these extremes get to me more than i thought they would

am i supposed to say "yeah, i'd want that"

or am i supposed to just do it?

because i'm terrified

and isolation isn't an orientation or a person

but my brain will treat it like it is anyway

and fill the cracks in between with a cosmic love so special, so pure, that it thinks i won't notice

jesus, i guess it worked, though

didn't really notice how crushing the loneliness got until i had the time to remember

maybe if i distract myself again i can run from this empty ache

but it's getting so hard to do that

i just don't have the heart anymore

and the fact that i don't even know what's missing will always swirl angrily above my head

the hungry ghosts and sharp angles

from four summers and a sin ago