You may not know it:
But your words
They eat away at me

Each harsh remark
taking bite size chunks
out of my capacity to last the day.

Unknowingly sharpened to weapons
Wielded against my rational evaluation
cutting away the ability
To complete the tasks of the day.

Your pressured speech
It suffocates my ability to communicate
My garbled words gurgle and ooze
like life blood from a hollow wound.

Hours of anxiety are whittled away
with the chisel of your exasperation
A moment for you stretches on to my year
You’ve moved on and I’m frozen here.

Your words are weighted
And my sodden corpse
cannot process the flow of your disdain.

I mumble apologies
and miscommunication
as you add another layer
Like a wheel at a fair
we loop;

Until it skips
like a record
and you hop off the track.

I look over and you’re gone
As I sit on the rubble of the rest of my day
Wondering if you kissed me goodbye.

Carrying the strength of your volume
Ringing through my mind
Pleading with eggshells
to splinter in silence
for fear of continuing the cycle’s chime.

You may not know this:
But your words
Impress upon me
An echo of the mind

Much like drowning
I choke as I consume
Inflicting wounds
You never knew were there.

I will never know whether it's meant as praise or disapproval when friends tell me I'm being too transparent.
Conversations over coffee leave me wondering if they’ve ever truly known love—the kind that leaves you vulnerable.

Maybe they haven't grasped how terrifying it is to be misunderstood,
To deliver the wrong message,
To drop hints, only to have them left unexplored by someone too direct to see their meaning

Have they realized how a hint of opacity can blur everything, turning what was once clear into something unrecognizable?
How a single careless moment
or a slip of the tongue can lead to loss?

Isn't it a greater shame to leave everything to fate,
To let life unfold without intention?

In their eyes, am I foolish or brave?
Nonetheless, all I know is that pride is a heavy weight.
So I say;

I can only breathe when my words are laid bare,
Stripped of pretense and hesitation.
There is something freeing in that honesty, something necessary.
I love when I love,
Why hold back?