u/RJSolkan

​

You know the person I am when we're together. You know that person better than anyone. You know how much I love you when we're together, not because I tell you, but because you feel it. I feel it. We feel it. We always have. There is something between us that exists whether we understand it or not, and I don't think anything can really change that.

But there's another person inside me. A person that exists outside of us. A person that has nothing to do with you, and honestly, nothing to do with the person I think I am either. I don't fully understand him. I don't know where he came from. I don't know what he's looking for. But I know he's there.

And maybe that's the whole fucking problem.

Maybe I have spent my life trying to make one person out of two people who were never supposed to be enemies. Maybe the answer isn't destroying one of them. Maybe it's figuring out how they can finally occupy the same body without tearing everything and everyone apart.

Maybe reconciliation isn't between you and me. Maybe it has to happen within me. Maybe I have to find some impossible place where the person who loves you completely and the person who disappears into himself can exist at the same time. Where I don't have to amputate pieces of myself to become someone worthy of being loved. Where I don't use one part of myself to escape from another.

I don't know how to do that yet. I don't even know if I'm capable of it. But maybe that's the point. Maybe I don't have to know. Maybe I just have to stay long enough to find out.

So don't kill yourself. That's it. That's the first fucking rule. Just stay. Stay long enough to see what happens when the two halves finally recognize each other. Maybe you win. Maybe we lose. Maybe you become free. Maybe you become all of yourself. Maybe I do too. Maybe there's a version of me that doesn't have to choose between loving you and understanding himself. Maybe someday I can be all I am inside of you, and you can be all you are inside of me, without either of us disappearing.

Somewhere in all of this is the weirdest part of me, the part that gets behind the wheel and suddenly everything makes sense. Driving feels like a video game. The road, the timing, the movement, the anticipation. For a few minutes I'm not divided into anything. I'm just fucking good at it. Maybe the best driver in the world, at least inside my own head. Everything is moving and I'm moving with it, and there is no past or future, no version of me I'm trying to fix. Just be.

Maybe that's what I'm actually looking for. Not a different life. Not a different person. Just one life where all of me can finally exist at the same time. I'm trying to make that happen. I'm one hundred percent. You own me, if you want to. You know that now. I can only hope you like your new possession. Well used, no doubt.. but worth the work. I hope.

This poem is by Veronica Shoffstall was very influential for me and I wanted to share it with you! Enjoy.

After a while, you learn the subtle difference

Between holding a hand and chaining a soul,

And you learn that love doesn’t mean leaning

And company doesn’t mean security,

And you begin to learn that kisses aren’t contracts

And presents aren’t promises,

And you begin to accept your defeats

With your head up and your eyes open

With the grace of a woman, not the grief of a child,

And you learn to build all your roads on today

Because tomorrow’s ground is too uncertain for plans.

And futures have a way of falling down in mid-flight.

After a while, you learn

That even sunshine burns if you get too much.

So you plant your own garden and decorate your own soul,

Instead of waiting for someone to bring you flowers.

And you learn that you really can endure…

That you really are strong.

And you really do have worth.

And you learn and learn…

With every goodbye, you learn.

Veronica A Shoffstall

​

We fucking hate my life.

You fucking hate me.

I don't hate you.

That's the worst part.

I loved you so badly

that somehow I taught you

how to hate me.

And now we're standing

in the wreckage of something

I still want to save.

I want you.

I want us.

I want the life

I can still see

when I let myself imagine

tomorrow.

But tonight

I'm lying next to you

and it feels like dying.

You're right there.

Close enough to touch.

Close enough to remember

what we used to be.

And I don't know

how to lie beside you

knowing you don't want me,

knowing I am the reason

you don't want me.

That's the part

I don't know how to survive—

wanting to reach for you

while knowing

I built the distance

between us.

I made this.

I know I made this.

And God,

I don't know

what the fuck

I'm supposed to do

with that

We fucking hate my life.

You fucking hate me.

I don't hate you.

That's the worst part.

I loved you so badly

that somehow I taught you

how to hate me.

And now we're standing

in the wreckage of something

I still want to save.

I want you.

I want us.

I want the life

I can still see

when I let myself imagine

tomorrow.

But tonight

I'm lying next to you

and it feels like dying.

You're right there.

Close enough to touch.

Close enough to remember

what we used to be.

And I don't know

how to lie beside you

knowing you don't want me,

knowing I am the reason

you don't want me.

That's the part

I don't know how to survive.. fuck

wanting to reach for you

while knowing

I built the distance

between us.

I made this.

I know I made this.

And God,

I don't know

what the fuck

I'm supposed to do

with that

​

I carry things I cannot hide,

A secret worn upon my face.

The guilt that follows right behind,

The shame I can'tl erase.

My friends all know. GAK, or know enough..

And every glance SEARS the lies.

I wonder what they think of me??

And wonder if they ask me why.

I said I'm sorry, fuk'n meant it too,

But sorry never changed the past.

And now, I live between 2 worlds,

Not knowing which will last.

One road stays.. FIGHT FOR LOVE!

The other shows, tires flayed..

I wrestle with what feels so right,

And what I know I OUGHT to do..

I want forgiveness, yet fear the cost.

I want to HEAL! what I've torn OFF.

Wings bloody, bleeding, raw..

I can't but help to die in awe.

I've done this damage, I alone.

I deserve the blood the pain the grief

But every night, I'm left alone.

Choices made, I face unknown.

The hardest partt.. no, not the shame,

Or others know'n my fucking name.

It's looking at the one I hurt..

And knowing I've become the flame.

So here I stand, nothing left.

Honesty, time, temper, truth..

Trying to becone an innocent youth.

Who doesn't have to hide

From who they thought they were.

​

I carry things I cannot hide,

A secret worn upon my face.

The guilt that follows right behind,

The shame I can'tl erase.

My friends all know. GAK, or know enough..

And every glance SEARS the lies.

I wonder what they think of me??

And wonder if they ask me why.

I said I'm sorry, fuk'n meant it too,

But sorry never changed the past.

And now, I live between 2 worlds,

Not knowing which will last.

One road stays.. FIGHT FOR LOVE!

The other shows, tires flayed..

I wrestle with what feels so right,

And what I know I OUGHT to do..

I want forgiveness, yet fear the cost.

I want to HEAL! what I've torn OFF.

Wings bloody, bleeding, raw..

I can't but help to die in awe.

I've done this damage, I alone.

I deserve the blood the pain the grief

But every night, I'm left alone.

Choices made, I face unknown.

The hardest partt.. no, not the shame,

Or others know'n my fucking name.

It's looking at the one I hurt..

And knowing I've become the flame.

So here I stand, nothing left.

Honesty, time, temper, truth..

Trying to becone an innocent youth.

Who doesn't have to hide

From who they thought they were.

​

Minutes stretch into hours

as thoughts turn distress.

No sound arrests my gaze.

No pixels on my screen...

Images drone against the wall.

No understanding, none at all.

Screaming for attention.

"Are you still watching?"

Are you even alive?

Check!

Check?

Check again.

Wait..

Repeat...

Gusts of air escape me.

I touch my jaw,

my face, my lip..

searching for the pain inside.

Remind!

Remind?

And remind once more.

Until those words knock my door.

Yes. Yes.. I am,

a stupid, dirty, UGLY.. little fucking whore.

​

On first contact with her body,

my girl's bones become disjointed, unattached.

A disorderly but familiar crunch..

like the sound of a box of Domino's.

The room, the bed, all is forgotten.

The ceiling drifts loose from the nails..

no clock can remember time.

She laughs, shh, inside I break.

The moon, hiding from the bright,

pulls a curtain across its face.

I reach for her hand,

and find again our special universe within.

Planets GRIND beneath our skin.

Comets carry messages,

neither of us can read.

For one impossible second..

we are weightless, we are one!!

It is true once more.

Two names,written in the clouds..

Everything in its place.

Boom, crack, gravity remembers.

The room settles.

The clocks begin..

And somewhere beneath

the noise of the night,

her bones snap quiet, now in place.

The right box found, our lid now closed.

I rest my head.. dreaming? Sleeping?!.. no

Just quietly dying to be opened again.

​

I built a house from borrowed love,

and swore the walls would never burn.

I ran you down, into silence,

thinking that would be enough to learn.

There was a door I promised not to open.

I kept the key, beneath my tongue.

But a promise is a strange little beast,

they die in the hands that hold them.

So I opened it, when outside myself..

Not with anger or some grand collapse.

Just one quiet turn, all by myself.

One ordinary failure, millions repeat..

and suddenly the whole sky,

revealed on the other side.

You had trusted me with winter things..

like the soft places,

the windows left unlocked,

the names you used

when only we were listening.

I carried them carefully, as best I could..

Until I didn't.

Now the house still stands, things intact

but every room remembers

where the smoke began, and the cracks.

I walk through it at night, cold. Alone.

Counting all I can't revuild.

Several cards, am indoor plant,

one photograph, and several more,

one promise, all the goals.

I meant what I said, and it's the cruelest part..

I never meant to break your heart.

And still,

I became the thing

I promised you I would never be.

I'm sorry forever, even I would never forgive me.

I broke the quiet, it was soft as glass

And heard it crack within you

A treacherous game I can't unplay

The heart could not undo

I wore a smile borrowed.. untrue

While darkness grew within my chest

A faux warmth, a fleeting flame,

That robbed our truer rest

Your name once honored now echoes all

Where footsteps will not stay

I pace the rooms I shattered so,

And cannot find the way

Remorse, an endless, circling bell

That tolls without a hand

Each memory a sharpened edge

I scarcely understand

I thought desire a passing wind

It proved a ruthless sea

Now every shore I try to reach

Withdraws itself from me..

How does one mend an angel torn

When these fingers caused the tear

And every stitch recalls the fault

That placed my damage there

If mercy lives it hides from sight

A distant, dimming star

I stand between what I have been

And what I can't be anymore

I writhe in pain, I made the bed

It's bashing out my feeble head

All I want, to be with you

I'll kill the world to make it true

I've hurt the person I love most in the world for no good reason. I allowed an outside relationship to develop and become inappropriate earlier this year. No logic no plan just happened. Fool, idiot, worse. I can't deal.