Dust off my feelings — I could say
     I’m a little rusty when it comes to love,
so please… forgive me.
With all these needs and wants, I don’t want
to seem so needy — believe me! Sometimes I feel
like the memory of other people, a name echoed
in stories but never fully seen. I guess the fantasy
of connection never really ends. I loan myself
abundant confidence — but only in my heart,
and even then, only vaguely. Behind the irises,
tired eyes rest on the soft outlines of what
the mind believes it can finally see. To participate
in finding oneself… it’s a gruesome search party.

My floodlights are filled with a bit of drought —
shining outward, but lacking what flows within.
I’m strolling where I never had the courage to step,
everywhere I turn feels like a new pressure.
I give out my heart, but don’t have much of a chest
to hold it — barely a ribcage to defend it.
Yet still — there’s treasure in this tenderness,
a worthwhile chest of purpose hidden in the pretending…
of escaping real life. But here I am, in real time —
taking the first step.

Can’t be everyone’s hero—
but it’s so easy to be framed as the villain in someone’s story,
caught in the blur between goodwill and what they believe is ill will,
the wheel spinning from “helpful” to “harmful” without warning.
The sickened influencer—tired of carrying hearts like glass—
now catching cold thoughts, like a mind with influenza,
and I’m wondering: do I get any better at doing the most,
or do I just give less of a **** as the walls I build
crumble beneath the weight of everything I try to hold back?
Does any of it matter, really—at all?

Not everyone will love you like a lover in the honeymoon season—
the moon only glows for a night, and even the sweetest honey dries
when left open too long. And what you think might bring us closer
can become the very thing we learn to hate together.
But maybe in the court of opinion, I’ve become too quick
to cast judgment—forgetting that my sense-of-self
sometimes acts selfish too.

But I’m not standing tall above anyone—I’ve got my own
shortcomings, and none of them come in small doses.
I sin too. Like you, I can act so human, too human, too often.