ice, dear

silly of me

sometimes it is so painful… that it makes my stomach convulse so deep i am worried i will collapse— inescapably into myself. it is like i am being punished. wide, knowing eyes of woe from behind a thick pane of glass. i have never understood it. i have only been able to accept it. to deny it would not help me. anyways i have made a home for myself here. (against my will.) and so, sometimes, i forget about the reality of the situation. but i am always forced back eventually. put back in my place. reminded of how i have been separated. it makes my shoulders clench as a chill runs through my body. ice, gingerly, maliciously caressing me. a chill of sorrow, of helplessness, of hopelessness. as if i have been isolated from the whole rest of the world and— despite occasionally fooling myself into thinking otherwise— i will always be here. i will never stand outside of the surface, i will never breathe that— air. a part of me knows that i shouldn’t even want to be included; they are all so different from me and in the past it has only brought me pain, and more isolation, to attempt to surround myself with them. but why is it that they can never look at me? what do they conclude of me that they must find so disgusting, so pitiful, so unworthy? it is that i can feel their resentment, yet don’t actually see their full gaze— their gaze that would confirm it, make it clear and tangible— that forces me so harrowingly into myself. unwillingly, i swallow their abhorrence of me, and am stuck with it. a child locked into their bedroom with a monster under their bed.

now that i think of it, i do think that i sometimes, rarely, catch them stealing a look. it is desperate; and it is very quick, so as not to be infected. it is a glance that could be played off as an accident, as a trick of the eyes. sweet deniability. but it is a confirmation for them. for them that one millisecond is enough