Imprint

Between a visit from Bryan Roessel, a date who likes poetry, open mic nights and a poet roommate I'm been inspired...almost pushed...to write more. Lately it seems that words and ideas form mostt often while I''m running. This one developed yesterday and I actually got the courage to share it with Rafael and get some feedback. Here's what I've got so far:

Imprint

There’s a wide spread belief that one will always be emotionally attached

To the first person they sleep with; that the hormones and the vulnerability

Will imprint on us like ducks on their ducklings and we will follow

Our first partner blindly, in line, never asking questions, never forgetting.

The same could be said for feelings. I shed the only three emotions I’d ever known:

Anxiety, sadness and anger. I was naked without them when you walked in.

You said I looked genuine and beautiful

And asked me to stay undressed.

It started on the Valentine’s Day when we ate the heart shaped pizza in my kitchen.

I laughed at your jokes but never  because I was nervous.

We went to a poetry reading and the poems were so beautiful that we cried.

I’d never cried over a poem before.

I fell in love with you, not because of the pizza or the poems or

Your brilliant blue eyes sharing tears like a cold shower in the desert.

I fell in love with you because you were with me the first time

I felt something other than numb. 

Boundaries

My fear of people exhausts me.

My muscles ache from holding them clenched so tightly;

always bracing for the sudden impact of

Someone else’s interest in me.

(Who hit you? My therapist once asked.

No one, I said. But if I hold myself like this

There will be less of me for them to judge.)

I consistently avoid eye contact.

Because  if I look at someone directly,

They’ll climb inside me and inspect my inner parts,

Poking and prodding where I feel it the most.

Can you see where I’m going with this?

All human contact is raw and ardent

And most of all, physical.

So I never feel like I’m wearing enough clothes.

My fear of people exhausts me.

I’m tired of the muscle aches,

The lowered eyes, the cold.

No one actually wants to hurt me.

If they're anything like me

They just want to climb through my eyes

To find something of themselves

Some sort of reflection, some validation

That they'll be remembered somewhere.

If they're anything like me (and they are!)

They're looking inside someone else

Just to be reassured they're still alive.