Soft in the Middle

by Shelby Eileen

there are so many words I’ve left unsaid so instead of going another year or five or ten in brutal, crushing silence don’t waste this opportunity don’t be scared when the full weight of my heart tests the strength of your hands I’m trusting you with something I barely trust myself with this knowing this telling this momentous uprooting I’m here I am I am right here in these words

I think if I have ever loved you that means that I’ll be on your side always

they either leave me or never get the chance to because I leave them first

between me and the people I love something always breaks, or fades away hearts come undone like strings of pearls feelings disappear like earrings by now my jewellery box is almost empty is this the reason I’ve never liked wearing stones and silver at the same time? there is always too much to lose

you can make things out to be so familiar things that don’t even exist (I’ve done it)

everything is always happening; trying and doing and falling and failing life is never still

I watch people change while I painstakingly stay the same

some subjects are best put to rest when your words reach for scalpels more often than sutures

Just because the risk is important and difficult, it doesn’t convince the stars to align. Perhaps they had other hearts to draw together at the time you reached out to them. Perhaps if you ask them again somewhere down the line, they won’t be so busy. Perhaps your questions and answers will be completely different. The stars will always be there, but you should move forward.

the intention is not to leave paper cuts all over their hearts no writing wrongs is about putting bandaids on your own wounds the ones that are there because someone else forgot that words are sharp and they cut and it stings even when the intention behind the words was never to harm

no one will ever love me perhaps someone is capable but surely I’ll stop them before they ever get too close making my own misery is what I do best

what have we done to get this way? what have we done to feel like this? like we’re sitting at the bottom of the ocean sunken like anchors weighted like grief if we reach out, we can almost touch if we speak, we might catch muffled sound but I just can’t seem to hold you and words have been dying just behind my lips, and the things we are still sharing are but stale crumbs of what was once so tender

I feel myself becoming a cave; curving around my centre hardening to protect what sometimes makes me feel hollow

what do you want from me and my glass heart you, carelessly putting your fingerprints all over me at least have the decency to leave me clear for the next people to look inside me won’t be able to see through the smudges and handling of past hands and this will no doubt cause them to turn away quickly move along briskly you don’t stare too long into a window when there’s only darkness on the other side

I hate realizing that I was wrong. I didn’t move on. Those feelings were just frozen and now they’re thawing; spilling and messy; staining and toxic; harsh and hollow.

every minute of every day in every thought that I can’t stop thinking I feel the limitations on me questioning whether the way I’m living -and loving- is ok

when you cut me, does it not feel like you are cutting yourself? or is it just me that feels everyone else’s pain like it’s my own? like I deserve to be torn down buried in the ground at my feet simply because I care too much and feel it all

I have an awful bad habit of running away and expecting people to follow like they’re attached to my heels an awful bad habit far too hopeful and damaging for a girl who cracks so detrimentally at the thought of being turned away from

like dandelions turning brittle and translucent as summer drags, and turns, and ages I am trying to let go of what once made me feel so full I’m sure the flowers take no pleasure in dying on the wind but their loss is necessary for new growth to occur therefore my remaking is also necessary for new love to bloom

I’m just trying to figure out how to remain soft in a world that only knows how to be hard

beauty is not pain beauty is simply there everywhere any place you are willing to let light shine

words have always buried themselves in me so deep like knives I have always twisted them making beautiful things ugly changing hello to goodbye creating wounds out of nothing

I have all but become my words even the ones I don’t speak even the ones that aren’t true that’s what happens when you think too much and say too little

if I had to describe myself in opposites I would admit that I’m both rough and tender

you think too much love could break a thing like you but one day the right love will walk through your doors turn a different light on each day blow dust off of one thing at a time and will know that your heart requires one who treads carefully

I worry that you think my silence means I don’t need you I worry you’ll never know how untrue that is

I want you to know that you can be soft for me even when you’re hard for the rest of the world the world gives us no choice

the stardust on my fingertips is proof that I’ve been reaching for something better it means, one day, I’ll hold the stars whole

for all the times I wanted to tell someone that they’re beautiful and that they make me happy and that the world is a better place with them in it: you’re beautiful you make me happy the world is a better place because you exist the positive things are what we will regret holding back the most

one day you’re going to be so happy and even if it’s not with me I’ll feel your happiness like it’s my own because it has always been that way between me and the people I have loved, love, will always love,

though I’ve been hurt and it feels, sometimes, like the fault is yours I would never blame you for this: finding some kind of peace elsewhere wanting what you couldn’t have with me needing to feel wanted and letting someone else want you more completely than I ever could

I don’t know how much or how little truth there is in how I think and feel I just know that when you said it would be too hard to love me from so far I heard, instead you’re not worth it

how do I fix this flaw: that I find it so easy to fall in love and so hard to tell the truth

I’m always so upside down with feelings that I push away what’s right and real and true

I’ve always seen what I can see now my deliberately turning away was not the equivalent of unknowing

all I’ve heard them say is, “you need to let it go” what does that even mean? forget? impossible pretend to forget? possibly but how much good do I have to pretend to forget along with the bad let go of what’s weighing you down let go of what’s causing you pain let go of what’s pushing you to your knees let go of what’s keeping you from growing let go of what’s not holding onto you let go of what is clearly too much of a burden on your struggling soul how do I let you go? how do I just let go of what my hands wanted to hold so badly they shook with desire of what made my chaotic heart finally, finally calm of what my stars told me I needed again and again and again and still

the people you’re almost certain are too good for you to have deserved are the ones you have to fight the hardest to keep you need them if only to teach yourself that you deserve the very best

I asked my heart she said I think our mouth got tired of keeping all our words in I think our head got sick of pretending I’m not the one calling the shots I think caring too much made us mince the affection we show to others and I think telling people their worth is immeasurable is one hell of a way to feel alive

I think a part of me will always put you first but I think other parts of me are fine with moving on can being torn apart really be the only way to be whole again?

for me for you for us for alternate, alternate universes where maybe all of our decisions were made differently and when we reached out our hands they found the same something solid to hold onto - I’m happy for that me, for that you, for that us