i stood in the bathroom for so long. just listening to you pretend like you weren't crying. i stood there paralyzed by choice. by indecision. i was trying to not be selfish. i washed my hands. i wasn't really washing them. i held them under the water and kept squishing the handfuls around like i might find meaning in the water, or perhaps the flesh. i was staring in the mirror, but i couldn't allow myself to feel the true fright of my own eyes. of self perception. i was staring at my face the way one might glance at a stranger who's face they do not trust. i was standing there. trying to decide. trying to find meaning. trying to convince myself i wasn't selfish. trying to find the best way to hurt myself and not take you as collateral.

as i did this, i looked back at my hands. the squishing, squeezing. as i did it, i thought, "this would make a lovely poem". then i felt selfish. what beauty was there to be found in my inability to comfort you after i had harmed you. i imagined it being a scene in a story i might write some day, but likely won't live long enough to. i wanted to play dead, perform as the abused. because imagining that i had hurt you and that you didn't deserve it was worse.

i turned the water off sooner than i meant to. now my cover was gone. and yet i still couldn't leave. i could go back to my room. i could convince myself to be okay again, just with more motivation to leave your home. i should have done that. but it would have been selfish.

truly, every option was, in the end.

i followed the sound of your heartbroken, tired voice. i found i had no voice at all. you invited me into a hug. i hate hugs. they suffocate me. they make me feel small. i hate feeling small. i hate not being able to breathe. i begged you not to hug me, but that was a long time ago. and that was before i started hurting you. i was trying to make it up to you. i wanted you to feel better. i don't know what i was doing. you held me. i wish you hadn't. any desire i might have to protect myself becomes selfish when i have not protected you. if i didn't want to be touched, i shouldn't have hurt you. if i wanted to have my boundaries safe, i should've earned it properly. but i didn't. so i let myself be held.

i didn't even hug you back. i should've. this was supposed to be for you. you kept asking if i was okay, what was wrong. i wanted to vomit on your chest. but i just cried harder. i couldn't speak.

it was an eternity, this embrace. every moment i wanted to scream, i wanted to cry, i wanted to push you away. i wanted to tell you i never felt comfortable when we had sex. i wanted to tell you every time you kissed me, it made me wish i had never been given a physical form. i wanted to tell you that every moment you've had my body in your hands, it has been because i never thought i deserved safety or love otherwise.

i believed that unless i gave you what you wanted, i would have no where left to go. i still do.

so when you ran a thumb over my shoulder, as a lover might, i only swallowed all of my fear and misery into myself. deepening the pit of terror within me, that threatens to drown me more each day. the front door opened sooner than either of us anticipated. i have never felt such relief as i got up and bolted for my room. i've never had a panic attack quite as horrific as the moment i laid in my bed after that. i couldn't breathe. i was choking. i wanted to peel off my skin so no one could touch it again. i've wanted to live without skin since i was very young. it's common in those with my kinds of memories.

when i first took your hands to put them on my hips, i had hoped you would feel different. i forced myself to believe you were different. that it felt different.

but you never felt different. no one ever will.