i don’t know if i forgot what happened

but it has caused me to grow a second ribcage around my heart.

 

i don’t know when i grew a cover of thorns and i don’t know when i lost it,

and 

i 

don’t 

know 

when it morphed from attacking the world,

to some kind of one-way glass.

i’m not so abrasive anymore,

but still shut up tight.

trying not to burden the air.

 

it’s always been 

listening is easier than to speak

and everybody likes to talk about them self anyways 

and don’t mind

or don’t notice.

 

it can go on sooooo longgggggg toooooo i swearrrrrrr.

they love to talk about themselves.

they LOVE to talk about themselves.

and i know how to be easy, 

what questions they want me to ask, 

what questions to hide myself with.

they telling stories about themselves

telling the same stories about themselves,

because they don’t know i was the one they told the first time 

and that i don’t forget

because i’m a hard listener.

 

it makes for a slow acquaintance.

 

where i come from we don’t talk about ourselves as much as they do. 

getting to know someone is special 

and not easy.

something from where me and it are from tells us to protect ourselves with silence.

something in me is the most defensive.

 

maybe we don’t even build the wall with silence but we build it

with laughter, 

with hard laughter.

with the loudest laughter.

with jokes that never end 

taken further and further 

so 

there’s no silence 

to show us how 

 

tough 

 

we 

are 

being,

how hard we’re acting 

working hard at acting.

 

something has taught us not to let anybody know about us

because they don’t care anyways.

 

our legs are heavy with what has happened

and it’s hard to walk out and away.

 

these people here whisper about distant misfortune with excitement 

and want you to know their whole experience. 

want to be judged. 

want to be put in a category. 

want to be cool and dangerous.

 

sometime i want to be able to speak on myself 

and not feel like i’m revealing weakness.

sometime i want to go back home and learn everything.

i want my mom and me to be back in my room 

talking about the way she was in middle school.

 

maybe i should ask my people these questions i reserve for strangers.

 

to mine: 

i love you, i trust you.

 

to they:

be careful of people who ask questions.

they’re protecting themselves with your words

and you won’t notice because you’ve been waiting too long to answer them.