Saturday into Sunday

It's silent again, or maybe that's me. I take it all in and let the sound of the cars pull me back from the blur the room became without you here. The web unfolds and I think of the days I can't count from now--like the one when I learn to drive and can look out of the corner of my eye and see you by my side with your hair spiked up and your smile pointed at me. I think of the we that comes from you and me. Yet it's radial, and I know somewhere there's a thought caught up in these gossamer strands, struggling to break free and screaming as my mind crawls closer and closer. And closer I come to see that something I want may never be. A little something maybe someone like me. But around the web I go again, and I see a different universe that seems more complete. I see them all the time and feel what it's like to be in every one of them, and right now I'm going through something that makes me want to run away from this one and live in the other where I know that I've run through that smoke with sticks in my hands and my brother in the . If I pull enough pieces of all these times and places together, maybe I can create the perfect universe. I can create the perfect self, and the one that would have been there with you tonight--the one that could be there on all those future Saturday nights with friends. Instead I'm here and wishing I knew how to be someone else or maybe just a more social me. And sometimes I wonder if that's really what's wrong. Maybe that's why I like to perform. I get to be around a lot of people yet still be separate from them--a wall of ability and aspect that keeps the crowd from closing in on me. I have to stand apart because I'd lose myself in everyone else. But I know that doesn't have to be. I've been one of the others before. I know what it's like to not feel like this--to not feel like every social situation could end in disaster with my soul lying lifeless on the floor. And I'm not sure that it's been infrequent other than recently that I've been that kind of person. I was growing into being alright, but then something happened to shoot my confidence in the foot, and now I'm trying to limp back to where I was. And all the while it feels like everyone else is running full speed ahead. I keep wondering if I'm getting worse. I don't remember having this much trouble last year, but maybe that's because I'm finally getting out and doing things. I'm finally opening up to friends and letting the walls crumble. People are starting to see who I really am, and maybe that's a little scary. What's also scary is that there are people who think they see who I am. Believe me when I say that I really want them to know and that I really want to know them. It seems like we've been trying for years now, and it may never work out, and I may forever be a stranger to people so seemingly close to me, but I'm not the type of person to give up on anyone. And for those of you who may be wondering, that includes myself. I don't know when I shifted to talking to more than one person. I didn't even notice the shift in writing style. I guess it doesn't matter. I feel like I'm all over the place tonight in more ways than one, and I almost ruined the evening several times over. I finally decided that the best way for me to not fuck it up was to stay home alone. I think it was the right call. I may feel a little strange right now, and maybe it was only right to night, but I don't know what would have happened had I gone with you/them. I'm scared of becoming something you don't want me to be, and I hate making you feel like you have to be something you're not. I really worry about how much more of me you can take. I don't want to stop writing because that means I have to live with the silence in this room until I can get my brain to give me some peace. You have no idea how hard it is for me to fall asleep unless I am absolutely exhausted. Even then, I have trouble turning off this fucking head of mine. I've learned to tune out the rest of the world quite well, but sometimes I get lost inside my own head, and I haven't figured out all the ways out yet. I just want to be able to function like a normal human being 100 percent of the time. I'm so scared that shit like this is going to keep me from being able to do what I want to do with the rest of my life. There are people outside of my window right now. Too many of them were talking at once, and the noise just filled up my head like water in a balloon that's already been stretched way too much. Nails on a chalkboard and that dizzy feeling you get when you first stand up after a night of really heavy drinking. All in an instant. It doesn't happen all the time, but tonight is one of those nights, I guess. I guess I made the right call. I want to know how to stop myself from shutting out the rest of the world. I don't want to be the one sitting in a corner staring blankly because that's the safest thing for my brain to do. I feel like it's happening way more often than it used to, and I'm really not okay with that. I wish someone could help me with this, but I feel like there is no way I can make anyone understand what's happening with me. Even I don't fully understand it, and that particularly frustrates me. I have this obsession with knowing/understanding people and things. I try to know as much as I can because I feel like that reduces the number of situations where I will be caught completely off guard, thereby reducing the number of times I completely lose touch with reality. There was such a long period of time when this didn't happen. And I really don't remember when it started or how it came to an end. But I know that it's possible. I know that I can be okay.