Letters for when the Love Lies

Let’s begin with the cure:

I am consciously aware that what my thoughts tell me

are not the truth.

But sometimes they creep in insidiously,

a mosquito’s sickle tooth,

a bite I don’t notice until I accidentally scratch the wound.

I’m doing better, though.

I’m not touching it to make it worse.

—

Dear you, I’ve never told you about my mosquito bites.

Like when I’m standing in the kitchen eating ice cream and my brain hisses,

“they probably think you eat unhealthy,”

or when I wake up late my head says,

“they think you’re being lazy and you’re ruining their plans,”

no exaggeration, nothing but the truth, my head tells me this story that you think

I’m incompetent, unintelligent,

that I occupy a space in your life for that weirdo you have to put up with when I’m around.

My head believes you have a magnifying glass and if you uncovered my lies and inconsistencies

you’d never want to hear from me again.

But it’s just me, isn’t it?

My head, my magnifying glass, my lies, my tongue stopping up my own mouth.

—

Dear you,

sometimes I wish

I could be brutally honest with you,

that you’d use nothing but your ears and your imagination

to walk a meter in my shoes.

—

I know the cure,

I know the humans at the table don’t think so often about me,

I know their thoughts can’t actually hurt me,

except that I’m terrified of rejection so maybe they can,

the humans at the table eating pepperoni pizza probably think I’m totally fine,

just another warm body in a chair today, common as the sunlight,

this is how I’m changing what I think they think,

“someone actively likes you here.”

—

I know the remedy

but I don’t know reality,

the great grand scale between “everybody hates something about you” and

“everybody unequivocally loves you” is a minefield I can’t figure out,

but I know the cure

I know the cure

I get to pick who I get to be

under these insidious mosquitos

buzzing that nobody loves me.