A is for awesome

B is for beautiful

C is for creative

D is for delicious

E is for excellent

F is for fantastic

G is for great

H is for humble

I is for intelligent

J is for joyful

K is for kind

L is for lovable

M is for manly

N is for nice

O is for original

P is for perfect

Q is for quick

R is for radiant

S is for special

T is for thrilling

U is for unique

V is for valuable

W is for worthy

X is for xenial

Y is for yare

Z is for zesty

Women always think I'm somehow chivalrous for not wanting to sleep with them. Trust me, there's no nobility in it, in the nightmares I still have about being raped, about the fact I triple check every lock in my house before I go to sleep and double check when I wake up. I am irreparably broken, not some highly respectful Prince Charming.

It's not like I didn't try. I was a teenager once. And that was how I learned the definitions of the words 'panic attack', but more than that, it was how I learned something was still wrong with me. A real man could have kept going. I didn't. While most people probably don't have their first girlfriend dumping them leave an impact, the impact crater was already made long before I met her at all, and she dug into it deeper. So have I. This isn't a good place to be mentally, but it's well charted territory, familiar in its' sorrows and solitude.

For all that I am a lover of speculative fiction I can't fathom a human being of any gender, age or race that could put up with the panic, the pacing, the sudden bursts of feeling filthy that compel me to sit in the shower for an hour rubbing skin raw, and the way certain touches make my hands curl into fists. All the nice clothes and shoes matched to belts in the world will not hide my brokenness in the bedroom, the polished vocabulary won't cover the shattered nature of my glass heart, precariously put back together with the glue of time, lies and denial. No one has a use for something as defective as I am. If I let any one of them in, they'll realize it; high school all over again minus the soft cushioning of thinking I could grow out of it.

The break up is always instigated by myself, done for self-preservation's sake. My preferred form of destroying my only human connections are written words, where nothing might give away that they've been dating something subhuman and abhorrent the entire time. But, my best friend assures me each time, I was such a gentleman about the whole thing, I never led anyone on or pushed them into doing something they didn't want. Part of me is scared that she's beginning to think of me as more than a friend, that she'll be the latest pearl before swine I have to find a way to break away from.

A much deeper part of me, one I will never admit to even my therapist, sometimes betrays me in my sleep, and I dream of my best friend tangled up in the sheets with me, smiling, never disgusted, myself suddenly free from all panic and fear.

It hurts when I wake up and go to check that all the locks are still in place.

You did not one thing wrong

Reaching out again for me as I

Backed away as might an animal

Wounded, angry and defensive

But you did not make the wounds

Did not render me so very afraid

Of any of the many things

That I feared more than I loved

Comfortable in my paranoia

The safety you offered was foreign

Feeling as a snake might coiling

Around my legs to bind me

My past defined our shared future

Which is to say that I allowed it

To destroy any love we might

Have made a foundation for more

The truth is I left out of fear

In vain you struggled nobly to save

A man irreparably and intensely shattered

Infinitely undeserving of you

It is a mark of the purity of your heart

A heart composed of warmth

That you have somehow managed

To think any of it your fault

We kill to get to heaven,

But pray to avoid hell.

We fight the the evil amongst us,

But the differences are too hard to tell.

Where are we going?

Why don't we ever ask?

What are we scared of knowing?

Put your blinders on.

Trust in the higher powers,

That nothing is ever wrong.

Everything to fear is gone.

Just keep on working.

Don't take your foot off the gas,

Not when the Devil is lurking.

But I fear we're doomed to repeat the past.

Where are we going?

Why don't we ever ask?

What are we scared of knowing?

Run.

Don't look back.

The sound you heard,

Was just the round being racked.

Run.

Don't look back.

Keep you head down,

Before they turn your world black.

Where are we going?

Why don't we ever ask?

What are we scared of knowing?

What are we scared of knowing?

"I'm fine"

I say

When they ask how I'm doing

I'm not fine

I'm broken

I'm never enough

"I'm just tired"

I say

When they ask me what's wrong

Tired of things going wrong

Tired of hurting people

Tired of being me

"It's nothing"

I say

When they persist

It's nothing important

Nothing to worry about

Nothing, just like me

"Sorry"

I say

When they ask for an explanation I can't give

Sorry I'm so broken that no one can help me

Sorry that I keep so much from everyone

Sorry that I'm not enough