Paper

It is the act of listening that seems to fail

all of us.

Everyday.

It isn’t how you talk to one,

it is how you listen.

What you take away

after patient collecting.

We should communicate to others

how we ourselves wish to be communicated with.

We should say what we would want to hear,

we should trust our inner voices distinctly with our intuition.

And if it shall falter,

you shall learn;

because it is never quite as dramatic as we make it out to be

right then

and there.

One should remember there’s always

more than two sides

to each story.

And one of them contains the truth,

collectively.

All others are mere versions

based on perspectives.

One should always take into account

that one's emotions,

past and present,

cause filtration of accurate memories,

of sorts.

There's always a choice

You ignore me until you need me to smile and agree to aid you in one way or another.

The silence lasts

for weeks.

Burning into my over-analyzing head as I attempt to bounce a rarely admitted original idea off of you.

You don’t seem to realize you are

the last

attempt

I am willing to

proactively

participate in solely through

my own actions.

The ideas bounce off of empty air, and act more like a bird struck by death in mid-flight

than a wall’s reply to the sphere

that contains my mental roots.

You rush to me out of anger,

out of fear,

out of helplessness.

Because whilst you hint at suspicions that they judge you silently,

I listen quietly, pushing my own opinions to the back,

and the encouraging affirmations to the forefront.

Your passion erupts into caps-lock confessions and misspelled drunk letters revolving in a perpetual cyclone.

But when I break the silence,

in the instances so few

and far between,

you insist on quieting my clues.

But I still leave them.

You insist on quieting my fears, and my plea for your ears,

brilliantly framed by your hair.

But I continue to try to fight away yours.

And you say you can’t handle it,

and you say it’s too much,

too much.

Just like how I find myself,

in every aspect,

at every angle.

Just

too

much.

And that is when I realize why you,

my last attempts,

want so much not to listen.

Maybe I was wrong

I don't make you handmade cards because I'm cheap.

I make them because I think you'd like them better.

I make them because they're a piece of me you can keep.

You throw them away, and tell me to "put them somewhere".

You tell me, "I didn't do anything this year, I was going to but I didn't wanna go out."

I just say it's fine.

But you don't hear me, you're already lost in the television.

I don't say just one sunflower would have made me cry.

Out of happiness that you remembered, for once, something about me and didn't use it against me.

I can feel the filth in my bones.

Oh

"Sometimes I feel like you're going to let yourself die before you ever ask for help," he avoided eye contact as I focused on his mouth.
I didn't want to hurt him and tell him he was right.
I didn't want to put more damning evidence on the table
of what an awful person I really am;
how I will never tell any of you when I really need help.
When I really need you to stay,
I will never beg you,
even though I want to.