the endless seven months since graduation have been filled with some exciting fresh flavors of drugs/distractions.

i have not been avoiding doing and being- i have been quite busy/present/productive.

rather, i am so afraid of getting noticed, of being seen. 

this paranoia has been projected onto me like a UFO light- the fear of saying the wrong thing in the wrong place, the fear of ridicule, of embarrassment. i feel stuck underneath it and pulled towards it at the same time. that pull feels like conformity, like writing and erasing the same line until i burden the responsibilities of today to the person i will be tomorrow.

this paranoia is what keeps me quiet- every word that sings to my heart comes out muttered, mudded, mixed up in words that mean nothing and sentences that go on for too long. it begins to feel like lying, and so i stop halfway and 

 .

this paranoia leads to jealosy- of the person i know i have every right, every privilege, every responsibility to be, but am not. he is always at the doorstep, standing like, like unimaginably authentically himself. he breathes in and holds all of the world in his lungs. he breathes out and the air is full of change. he doesn’t need to find the right words- he doesn’t even need to speak. his presence moves the everything. that’s authenticity to me, anyways.

i resent him. what did i get wrong? why are we still, still not in the same room? why do i feel like my lungs hemmorphage the moment i try to breathe his air? i resent him because he is unapproachable. i resent him because i can’t find a way to make eye contact. 

but even more so, i resent myself- because i know that he awaits to be seen, and i keep him at the doorstep, at “tomorrow”. he waits while i un-collapse and collapse essay drafts, he waits

actually, he waits no longer. he has lost patience.

i feel like a snake that is shedding its skin, except that i’m the skin being shed.