placation

if i were to arrange every version of myself and put them in a line letting one of them lead the rest i would chose my 10 year old self because she knows what she wants the most 

every time i get in the car i revisit the question you asked, about two thousand days ago

it’s always mostly yes, if that’s okay with you, i think it will be yes

but then there’s the march about 600 days before that when i told myself to say no and asked myself to be strong enough to choose what was right always

before i knew and before i felt

i knew deep down there a was a day coming where i had to say no even though i didn’t want to

i tell myself maybe she didn’t know any better

surely she didn’t know anything other than what felt right and what was expected of her

but i guess i approach it all the same way now

talking in circles, telling everyone, asking so much

always in threes because that’s the only way

and the answer is yes but sometimes no and it becomes more vague every day

and if there is silence then i must listen, and i do

the observation is this: a fear of feelings materializing when translated to words

so i choose ignorance, like always, just listening

now i know what you want and i become that

so i become three people

they don’t understand what i am trying to say

when i am addressing every part of myself and you

i don’t know, i don’t know, i don’t know

i say three words at once and make new ones

i make new words every day when i search my heart

when i remember your face

when i’m an adult i have to make new words

as i age i just become a complication of myself

i write these words in that notebook and i tape the pages on my walls at the highest point 

no one can read them but i know they are there and they watch me

i feel safe this way

my new words supervise me as i sleep and they make sure i stay me

my first week of college someone knocked on my door as i was writing everything i wanted to change about myself in a notebook my mother gave me, i felt caught, i hid the notebook under my blanket and opened the door, they told me this “God showed me a vision, of you writing everything in a notebook about yourself that you wanted to change, and God said to throw the notebook away, you don’t need to change, God is pleased with you"