Feelings to Words

I start every day here. Looking at this screen and trying to fulfill my purpose of doing what I have effortlessly done over and over again - turn my feelings into words.

But nothing.

For a week I have rolled my tongue around almost-words.

I have these feelings burning a hole in my chest and for the first time, I couldn't name them, I couldn't materialise them into something real. So I wait for them to creek open my door while I wait in the dark and hope that I'll get some sleep even though I can feel their eyes burning into the back of my head.

I say 'them' instead of 'it' because I've seen a number of faces. Anger, hurt, disappointment, frustration. Pain. Pain pain pain pain, the face I won't forget. If only it manifested into something beyond merely conceivable. A limb. Something to carve at and remove.

"Beauty is pain."

But no one knows how long it'll take for the pain to turn beautiful.

I keep on discovering these different sides to people but for once I'd like to not learn my lesson the hard way. I always thought that if I cared enough for someone it would prevent them from hurting me. But I've learned that those are the people who will hurt you the most. So maybe my lesson here is that I've been too careless with my good intentions. I've so easily placed my trust into people I hardly know and people who I honestly and sincerely thought I knew.

I'm still trying to find words to make this prettier. I wanted to write something poetic and fascinating. Something to mirror the person I intended this for. But I have nothing. Nothing but old text messages and a name on a contact list that used to spell out everything I found beautiful in this world.

I want this to turn beautiful. I want to believe that people are growing kinder. I want to name everything that flows through my ant farm-heart and tie it to passing clouds so that I can finally say I'm not weighed down by  feeling too much.

I want time to pass so that I can leave and start over and look back at all of this as only a faded recollection. By then I will have forgotten how you made me feel. You will have the serenity and grace of a memory. And if you are to one day cross my mind, I might smile in naivety at the comfort of a familiar but distant name.