Wedded Blissful Ignorance

​I feel this kind of way when friends ask me favors. Typically one-sided, the friendship falls, so when I ask for help, it's inconvenient.

So, I stop asking. 

 I set myself up, I watch myself fall, and I understand that the den of solitude I crawl into is, in part, my own making. I've spent years digging myself deeper, burying my own needs, my belief system, and my voice. I push my needs down and wonder why people end up hurting me, but I’m the problem.

I don’t speak up because I’m afraid of being a burden, and then I just burden myself further with half friendships and crippling sadness. 

Even having the best of friends makes us fall deeper upon the one side. We're not supposed to feel this way; this yearning dread during happy times for our friends. 

It's without much effort that I settle myself on the other side of the glass and look in with longing. I press my hand against the glass in hopes of feeling the slightest touch of warmth as they laugh, but I only end up cold and distant. 

I don't speak up. I know I should, but why? If I wasn't a thought before speaking up, what would my voice do to change the views and opinions of others?

I've spent a lifetime on the outside looking in, wanting that openness others had but never fully grasping what it meant to truly be an included friend. I just watch them live, move on, and I linger in the background, silently cheering them on because, deep down, I am happy. 

I'm sad because I was a thought in their brain at one time until I wasn't, and I faded into memories I visit when I need to see a friend. I helped myself fade by tip-toeing out until I was sadly behind the window, hand pressed against the glass, watching them live as I stood still in memories of when I was included. 

Did it all start with the abuse? When I sat on the stoop in my bedroom, hand on the door as I listened to the outside happenings? I learned many things by being quiet and timid, but the greatest thing I learned was to irreversibly hurt myself more than others could hurt me.

I mastered the art of self-harm that didn’t involve cutting my wrists or pinching my skin; I pushed away until I was no longer a thought. I pushed away when I felt I was too much, and I pushed harder until no one wanted me.