You weren’t supposed to be like the others.

You weren’t supposed to close the circle.

Body turned,

shoulder cut line of sight,

making plans in front of me.

You weren’t supposed to do this to me,

like the rest of them.

Short lived, close knit,

until the circle closes off again.

The irony is I had just lamented the distance I find between me and everyone else.

The disconnect.

Unbridged gap, no matter how hard I reach

I’m never met halfway

They only reach once I’ve settled in my solitude.

Baiting me out of my loneliness with words of recognition,

calling out the very behavior they inflict.

Or perhaps reflect.

I am a mirror of your behavior.

I reach and i reach yet when my fingertips brush your turned shoulder you step away.

Unconsciously…

but that hurts more.

Something as inconsequential as a step to you.

a subtle shift of shoulders,

haunts me.

Again and again and again.

You weren’t supposed to be like them

You weren’t supposed to be them

You were supposed to be different

I’ve started to only reach once.

Someone pokes the fire so I bask in the warmth

of our twin flames.

I provide the wood from my own stock,

dwindling pile,

I give.

But when the flame dies and you’re nowhere to be seen I do not call marco into the night,

nor do I pile more of my own wood,

that I chopped myself

from my own trees,

grown strong in peace and loneliness.

In the end I go back to my own.

Myself.

No one invites me so I plan, coordinate, and invite myself.

I’m met with pinched eyebrows and downturned mouths,

“left out”

Harsh tones not stabbing strait on but coming at an angle of humor,

the slice is slanted like a paper cut,

tiny,

unnoticeable,

but I have so many paper cuts.

Why should I apologize for inviting myself and not you?

Is the irony not apparent in your protest?

Do you hear yourself??

I walk the salt spray landing,

far north but reachable.

Not close enough to be convenient,

not far enough to be foreign.

I see myself in the skyline.

I walk my solitude alone.

Content

because I am close enough to reach,

and I always reach back,

and I will never close myself out of a circle,

or make plans in front of me.

I only wish someone would try as hard as i do.

Or cut me loose.

stop trailing the bread crumbs,

stop rekindling the fire only when your others have burnt out.

Don’t make me walk the salt spray alone.

Don’t make me the salt spray, alone.

I am forced to recognize that everyone will disappoint me.

whether often or few,

the hurt still aches,

the ache still drives healing,

and the healing will be taken advantage of.

But I give

and I enjoy it,

and I will not be shamed for preserving my pile when all you do is use it to thaw your frost bitten fingers until you are warm enough to make a new fire with someone else