you’re supposed to want to listen

I thought
for the longest time
you were right.

even now,
I don’t really know what to say
because you shoved back
every inch of this thing I’ve been trying to want to scream.

the words are stopping because the thought of
you in my mind is
messing up my brain. Really,

I think someone will have to pull this out of me word by word until I’m spilling over, waiting
waiting waiting for someone to put me back together because you shoved tiny needles into my
skin and now I’m bleeding out everywhere. I think I lost something to you, I really did, and I
don’t know where to find it. It takes a lot of talent to do all of this while making me think you
were right to, and even now I know I’m being too harsh.

I’m looking, I swear I’m looking for the thing I’m missing, the thing I can sew to my lips so I’ll
be able to hold in my teeth, the string that will stitch together every little hole that’s been
bleeding out for as long as I can remember. You're supposed to be the person who holds me
together and when I let you I feel foolish because you never let anything stay untouched,
uncovered, left alone in the dark where it would rather stay. I’m raw, worn out, bleeding, and
when you say you’re sad too I feel like a joke because you never want to hear me and that’s your
job, isn’t it?

— Kavi Nielsen