It’s Not The Bits That Bother Me

There's a room in my head. The door is closed tight and locked shut. I threw away the key a long, long time ago. But I didn't realize that the lock was made operable by words. Words of another and of others. Voice command specific to syntax and the unintentional, ignorantly provided, context of the given situation. Those short, bitter words unlocked that door and unleashed the destructive mess behind it. You said, "It's not the bits that bother me", and my mind implied the rest of your unspoken intention: "...it's just you". It's not the bits that bother you, it's just me. And I broke. What is so wrong with me that it isn't my "bits", or rather my gender, that bothers you but instead it's me that bothers you? How am I so intolerable? What about me is so wrong that you won't be with me the way I lay with you in my head every night? How can I change? How can I be right? If not my bits then what? I'll change, I swear I'll change... I'll change... And I spend time mulling this over. Like the muscles of my stomach I churn this over and over and over again until the macromolecules of what you said cannot be digested further. And I've been cleaning up this mess from the opening of that door; gooey sludge mopped up, reopened, old wounds stitched back together, opening windows and turning on fans to focus the white sage smudging of my mind for the last two weeks. And I've had to calm, tame, redirect, push back, manage what came out of that room back into its dark corridor. It was my heart. I kept my raging and wild heart in that damn room. As it lays dormant now I forget about it. This time I locked the door but I kept the key. And this lock is no longer so easily coaxed by your words; your proverbial tendencies that I am all too familiar with. And I've been hardened. Callused to your every whim. Maybe from this loneliness, or maybe from all the cleaning up I did, or maybe from the apathy, or maybe from my bits. I've concluded that as deeply as I wanted to change for you I no longer am slave to you and your words. Because I cannot change. Because there is nothing wrong with me. I don't need you, I don't want you, and I have moved on. That door is locked and will stay that way. I'm not mad or broken anymore. I'm not holding this against you. I'm just tired; done. And I've checked out of your hotel.