Intensely Deep Without Making Me Truthful

I stand in the silence, when no one is close enough to borrow and no noise is loud enough to disguise me, I meet that raw uneasiness feel heavier than any crowded room ever did,
I stand in the silence, what unsettles me is not emptiness itself but the way I keep discovering unfinished corners in me, dull little hungers and timid little resentments,
I stand in the silence, I admit there are days I reach for people not from love exactly but from panic that I might have to feel my life without decoration,
I stand in the silence, am I wanting company or am I begging for an easy escape,
I stand in the silence, and the first thing I learn is how quickly fear begins when I start turning away from what I already know is always here…

I watch my own face, and I see how harshly I name myself when no one is around to interrupt the sentence before it hardens,
I watch my own face, and the stale list of defects I polish in secret as if self-contempt were a form of discipline instead of a habit that keeps me obedient,
I watch my own face, and I hate how familiar that cruelty feels, how easily I call myself secondhand and shoddy when what I really mean is frightened, unfinished,
I watch my own face, did I flinch because the truth hurts or because the language is too cruel,
I watch my own face, and I stay with the ache long enough to separate what is real from what is merely an old wound silencing in my voice…

I follow the thread, from my private discomfort, and I feel the shame loosen a little when I remember that the same anxious weather keeps moving besides mine,
I follow the thread, and I understand how easily I act as if my struggle is uniquely embarrassing, when in truth so much of what humiliates me is painfully just ordinary,
I follow the thread, and this does not make my pain smaller, but is another sly way I keep myself central even while pretending to feel broken,
I follow the thread, can I let myself be ordinary here without turning that into another insult,
I follow the thread, and I feel the lonely room grow wider when I stop treating my own bruised mind like an exception to the rest of the world…

I study the closeness, between who I am with people and who I am with things, I am always dragging my patterns into the room before I speak,
I study the closeness, and I notice how I become softer around what flatters me, impatient around what asks me to learn slowly instead of rewarding me for what I already know,
I study the closeness, and it embarrasses me to admit that I often call myself misunderstood but in reality is refusing to confirm the version of me I rehearsed in private,
I study the closeness, am I listening to what is happening or only to the story I prepared,
I study the closeness, and the more honestly I watch myself in relation, the less I can hide that make me feel deep without defending until it becomes clear that depth without truth is only distance in disguise…

Watchwords:
no noise is loud enough
an old wound speaking
painfully ordinary and woven
dragging my patterns into
deep without making me truthful