You Between the Lines

by Katie Naymon

That’s the problem with me. I constantly read the room and cater my movements, words, thoughts, which-comma-goes-where to other people.

“How do you know when you’re good at something?” “When someone else tells me I’m good at it. Is that bad?”

It’s a scold. It’s a Why aren’t you over that? Why can’t you be fun? That’s how I hear it, at least.

I need someone to tell me what to do. Otherwise I barely know where to start.

I hate how my first instinct is to want to make things more comfortable for him, to not be the root of someone else’s issues.

You can take the girl out of high school, but you can’t take the fractured remnants of an obsessive crush out of the girl.

I constantly accommodate, but then I secretly resent other people for not being as accommodating.

“You say sorry way too much.” “Yeah, sorry, should work on that.”

I START MY POEM LIKE I do all homework assignments: the night before it’s due.

More important, they’re not good for people like me. The ones who want to please. The ones who contort and twist to fit into whatever shape the other desires. I’m trying to move on from those old habits.

While everyone else asks for a performance, some heightened version of what I’m offering, Will just asks me to be more myself.

Not one molecule of me touches one molecule of him and I feel every single atom in the narrow ravine between us.

You assign your self-worth based on your perception of what others think about you.”

I’m motivated by deadlines and praise and prestige.

“Leigh, I can hardly remember a time I wasn’t in love with you.”

It’s kind of scary when you can see someone this clearly—when you can see them beyond the parameters within which they’ve permitted themselves to live.