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insecurity, we all have it. some of us are just dating it

i didn't think they were when we first met. i mean, why would i? they were suave, confident, hot. filled to the brim with sticky hubris and emotion. but everyone has a vice, and the best of people keep theirs well hidden. so i find myself here, the place where all good characters begin-- in love. i definitely wasn't expecting it, but that's another story entirely. i think insecurity is a cautious devil. like the fairy stories i was raised on, it's cunning, a trickster. it masquerades as many things- pride, confidence, and anger being the most prevalent flavors. my lover is none of these things, save maybe a bravado that only comes from finally having the courage to live truly as oneself after years of running. this bravado is enticing, but not necesarily a symptom. perhaps the greater fault is that i am entirely consumed by their personhood. i, like a crocodile on a winters day, bask in the sunlight of their soul. if my limbs were iron i would carve wheels from pure stone and a wagon of aged wood and use it to drag myself to their feet. yet, love is farsighted, and time has revealed the true deliciousness of their personhood rests on the facet that they too, are human. so, we make our bed in the meadows and we fight our battles in the night. i speak more than i listen, they keep feelings like secrets. they shrivel and burrow to avoid, whereas i become louder to confront. our love is indeed an unlikely story. but i like it, and i want to make it. so, i find myself getting quieter, conceeding more. i let them win and ask them to decide. they do, and we fight sometimes. they would rather be disappointed than rejected. god, don't we all. i speak in riddles and they in fact. maybe we are too different but we don't let it deter us, for we are far more the same than we could ever realize. still, when i speak plainly they assume puzzles, when i gently correct they quiver, when i say too much they internalize, communication rought by years of passive agressive parents and partners before me. i, who have known none of this, continue my ramblings, wanting only to share more of myself with my lover. i say the wrong thing. there is no wrong. i say things. they hurt. i don't often mean it the way they take it. their interpretation is a faulty compass that rarely points to true north. sometimes the sheer polarity of their interpretation shocks me. i say i'm tired, they ask if i want them to leave. my direct mind cannot wrap around their curved one. if i wanted them to leave i would have asked. and i would never want such a thing. i say i am scared to become dull. they apologize for ruining me. i ask them what they want, they cannot give an anwer. insecurity is not a trait, it is a tyrant. i see them beneath the ruling scepter but i cannot budge them out from under it. so i try to be gentle. i speak softly. i conceed. i give them exactly what they ask for. i have been trained on what to avoid. i wonder if this training is making me trickier, or more like the partners and parents that made them this way in the first place. i am no saint, i wish i could learn to shut my desperate eager mouth, a chore i have resisted and fought since childhood with the will and stubborness that remains unchanged. still i ache. the constant intent on misunderstanding me ages my soul. i feel the ache begging them from within my loving eyes. "see me as i am, lover," it cries, "please hear me as i am."

@kiwibird4

Jan 13, 2025

😃

~on waiting~

--from my latest substack post-- ordering coffee, again. i’ll grab this one. of course; it’s no problem. oat? soy? neither? okay, no milk, right. it’s a thursday, you don’t put milk in your coffee on thursdays, i remember. you told me that last autumn for the first time. at the shop on the corner of streets running north and south and east and west the location as ambiguous as you were to me. i held onto your words like candlelight, which is to mean, i felt myself grasping at the wick of your thoughts as they released. hold onto it slowly, i did, each tendril of smoke had meaning, for you have never said things that did not matter. i’ve always held the space to gather up all your meaning, to keep attempting to collect the strands of everything that encapsulates you. the long strings of yarn strung together in loose cadence; but i can keep the rhythm, and i can keep the pace, and i can hold the room for all of it, i’ll hold the threads in my palm and i’ll grasp it with certainty. because it is without effort, there is no weight, or burden, or distraught, to be the one to hold that which you carry; it is not beyond my strength to hold all of you. for to love was to bear it all, or at least that’s what i read, but isn’t that how it feels? to be seen, to be understood, is to recognize that any quirk fear inability lack thereof is not a withholding nor weakness nor failing it is the space between us the location in the strings where we meet in the middle the threaded spiderweb of life has bound us this way no, not doomed; no, not ill-fated. for you are the red string connected to my wrist the one that has lead me to you the universal pull to unravel the thread so that i may reach you even though you exist outside of my grasp as i see it now all i ever needed was your hand pressed against mine i want to feel myself expanding and compressing underneath the weight of your eyes soft winding and slow crackling do we fall deeper the string twisting and tying and threading and then loosening unraveling the yarn crocheted and knitted do we find ourself loose ends and damaged strands have we come together to make whole the both of us i’ll order the same coffee every thursday i’ll walk you home from the station i’ll make the pasta that way you like it and i’ll keep writing these letters so that one day you’ll read them i’ll press them with the flowers of your tomorrow scented with the bloom of longing sealed with the certainty of promise the promise that i’ll keep collecting and saving the things you’d like the letters the movies the albums the trinkets the odds the ends the things yet to be discovered and the things you’ll have to show me i’m just a scrapbook of all the things i’ve loved before a capsule of intricacy i’ll keep the light on outside i’ll wait on the porch i’ll keep the fire warm i’ll know when you’re here and you’ll know it’s me for the strings will connect, the yarn unraveled, the lines no longer crossing but joining. and if it’s a thursday, a plain coffee, no milk just so there isn’t any lack of a sign. #poetry #letters #substack

@bills

Dec 5, 2024

1

😃

Substance

Really i am coarsing through your veins. Bleeding you out. Striking a cord. Relinquishing my spine. Relegating autonomy to the massive misogyny. Reckless. unstable and a brat. Something to say at the least appropriate moment, It was us all along. The flute stayed in tune. I decided long ago I would stay. Only to let go of who I actually was. Be there when you can. You never were. Bribe your way to my heart. Lend a helping hand. Decide to be yourself. The glass shatters and I reflect on myself and who I used to be. Bad bad bad. All the same to me, I don’t care if you die of thirst. Your green with envy and it shows. Quite the pussy cat. The elixer is mid greatfuly so. I take my bath and lay myself bare. It shows. Just where have you been. All the while I have been searching and finding no release as to who I want to be. I choose this time. I decide where to put it. Wide awake and endlessly falling asleep.

@gk

Mar 1, 2025

Top Recs from @Undoubtedly

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"Just like the old days"

Some days I can feel the craving of release, the soft whisper of an old "friend" beckoning me for just one more. Maybe on a thigh, perhaps the abdomen, but never in clear sight. All these places oozing with insecurities, making me think that if I would make one single incision all of these emotions will finally get cut loose.

@Undoubtedly

2d ago