Eclipse

I wield a machete, slashing through thicket and vine to get to the words I need to bring you closer to where I am because you asked me what it’s like.

I bubble up from the slime that fills my lungs to meet your hand outreached to pull me back to where the rest of you live, just one more time.

I crawled out from under that dark rock where I was cool and calm and unembarrassed and in control, to meet you in the din of overstimulation and judgement, just in case I could still function there.

I stood in the light and waited for your warmth and the rescue of your breath and your eyes and your shoulder.

I waited there as it grew cold and started to rain on my nude and ugly body, everyone staring and wondering what was wrong with me.

You proudly drew me out and put a bow on it and smiled and called it a gift, while I shook and shuddered and felt alone in a room full of people.

Realizing you don’t understand what I am going through, and don’t want to, and won’t, is the worst pain I have ever endured.

You try to place me where I once fit, like a part of a puzzle you have been working on as a labor of love; that would be unnervingly incomplete if a piece went missing.

Your compulsion and denial pass over my pain like an eclipse, silencing me, beautifully.