Sometimes I open myself up and try to give everything. It's new, this open-ness, and I'm falling as often as I'm soaring.
In twenty five years I can still count the number of people I can count on, on one hand.
But I'm sick of the walls, sick of pretending none of it gets to me. Sick of laughing at every joke like it's funny because I shouldn't take it personal.
So I'm trying. Problem is some nights after what I thought was an in-depth conversation about the way we feel, when someone laughs and says "yeah, but you realize you're ridiculous", I don't feel like laughing. I don't feel like revenge either, I don't feel much at all. It's that familiar damp cold where my mouth is laughing and my eyes are watching you to see how long it'll take for you to tire of this conversation and let me out of the car to go home.
And I'm sorry that I was weak tonight, and I'm hoping that you'll forget the one thing I let slip to show that for the moment you didn't feel like a friend, not by the definition we'd spent the night agreeing upon.
When you told me that you're terrified of puke and I said that if you puked at four in the morning and couldn't walk back into your appartment for the smell of it, you could call me and I'd make the hour and a half trekk to your place to sweep it up because puke is just puke and that's it.
I meant it. It was an offering. You chose to turn it down for your own reasons, ones I could try to understand, and we spent the evening laughing and arguing philosophy and you asked me vulnerable questions and I tried to answer them and when things got too serious we laughed them off and it was cool.
But when you dropped me off tonight, something you said while you looked at me broke the branch that I was leaning without any support or anything on.
That's fine. I took the risk. I've taken it before with you. I know you need to test people. I know you're scared. I know I'm strong. I've come this far as a friend of yours and as a friend I know I shouldn't be asking for anything in return, anything.
But something in the way you laughed a couple of times tonight made me wonder why I bother, and now I wonder if this doubt is the kind of test people need to pass in their relationships, or if I'm really tired of these stories.
It hurt, and you don't want to hear it, and when you asked me a question and I told you I couldn't answer it, I may as well have told you that I didn't trust you, and I'm sorry. I know you have no reason to trust me if I can't tell you about this or that story from ten years ago.
But I know you don't want to hear it, and now I'm running in circles again wondering why an evening of giggles and one of the funniest movies I've seen in a while has left me with my teeth clenched, hoping you won't have time to get together with me for a while.
I'm sorry. I'm just not all that strong sometimes.