not just anyone

summer: i’ve never told anyone that before.

tom: i guess i’m not just anyone.

 it wasn't so much a secret as it was a memory i didn't want to remember. but it surfaced. somehow i knew i could finally tell someone-- him. my words seemed awkward as i painted the air with a story of my seventeen-year-old naivety-- a picture i hated but i had to scrape those words away from me, for someone else to understand. that who i was is no longer me, but it made me, so it was important.

i sighed after the tears and said,  "i've never told anyone that before".
and he knew he wasn't just anyone.

"when at last you find someone to whom you feel
 you can pour out your soul, you stop in shock
 at the words you utter-- they are so rusty, 
so ugly, so meaningless and feeble from
being kept in the small cramped dark 
inside you so long" -s. plath

vulnerability and i are were once friends, until my sweet and softly spoken secrets were hurtled offensively like bombs in pocatello, idaho. now i no longer care for pocatello nor vulnerability. that is why i tread so cautiously-- like walking on broken glass, relationships keep me on my tip-toes. and i still need time. days or weeks are not the point. it could take me a lifetime to accrue enough trust in another human being to lay my naked heart at their feet and show them my emotional nerve endings. it is scary. it scares the hell out of me most days. but i know its worth it.  vulnerability offers an unconquerable freedom. it can counteract the gravity of your fears.

“vulnerability is the only authentic state. being vulnerable means being open, for wounding, but also for pleasure... don’t mask or deny your vulnerability: it is your greatest asset. be vulnerable: quake and shake in your boots with it. the new goodness that is coming to you can only come to you when you are vulnerable, i.e. open.” -stephen russel