It was dark as fuck. I could feel the wind whipping against the front of the mustang while I sped down the pitch road, 10 over, 20 over, braking for the next curve, taking the painted lanes as a suggestion.
It was dark as fuck. I could feel the crisp chill blasting through the open window, icing my cheeks and fingers. The feeling at the top of a roller coaster track, my face betraying the thrill while we gunned down the pitch road. 30 over. 40 over. Taking the painted lanes as a suggestion in the massive black diesel truck.
It's 2006, and instead of a CR in Bryan, I'm barreling down a farm road in Seguin, my long ponytail tangling around me, my fingers gripping the seat as we pass fences, boars, goats, and ramshackle abandoned structures. I feel every dip and hole in the road. I hear the crunch of complaining gravel being hurled and scattered behind us.
I loved hating those days. I loved it.
Why do I need people to be comfortable around me?
Potentially more importantly, why do I suck at it?
With the best of intentions, I keep things to myself and show the parts of me that will put other people at ease. Right up until the point that they realize I'm keeping things to myself. And then they are hurt that I don't share all.
Well.
All hurts you. All makes you feel like shit. All makes me a three dimensional and reactive person with feelings and effects and learning curves and it's too much for you to predict. Wouldn't it be easier if I were simple and comprehensively comprehensible?
All is selfish and presumptuous, putting my needs and emotional responses in the spotlight to be dealt with like they are of some major concern. But they don't need to be anyone's concern but my own and an extremely select few that I know won't take it personally. That I can rest easy knowing won't be hurt by them, or at least, will bare it to me if they are so I can repair what I damage.
I love easy.
I am naive.
But I don't trust easy. I am guarded. I am tense, jumpy, flighty, and hypervigilant. You don't have to do anything WRONG for me to act like I've been shot.
Don't take me personally. I'm carrying a big weight. I choose how to interact. I choose how to love. I have to, because if you have the power to decide how I process or love or behave - I have no control of my brain. And whose hands deserve a brain? A riled up mess of a brain? Is that even a kindness, to dump that on someone I care about?
--
Your hand on my knee makes me shake. Your fingers on my neck make me terrified in my gut. It isn't because of you. It's because when I feel spotted or out of control or cornered, I tremble. Involuntarily. It has nothing to do with you. I chose all of this. Out of love. Let me bear it.
--
Step back.
Stop asking what I am to you, and what you are to me.
What I am is an easy conversation, emotionless, not intimate, simple and full of smiles and no deep needs.
What I am is a fast streak of pavement under your tires, taking you where you need to be, and leaving you there to go forward in your life.
What I am is a thing.
What you are is a complete human being who has no business kissing the road.
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