soft

we layed in the backyard and dreamed out loud. i told you about how when i was younger i was always the girl who never knew where to go because i wasn’t very brave or delicate. what i didn’t say was that i was mostly just hushed noise and bruised knees. that i was mostly just this soundless craving for some nameless need. how i also could have never been what they wanted me to be - because you’ve either got to be one of them or something better, something to either lean on as a crutch or collect like water on the other side of a dam. i’m never the crutch and i’m never the water on the other side of the dam. i’ve always been this 100 pound fascinated and violent thing. i’ve always been detached but painfully apart of everything. and you lit your cigarettes and told me you loved my voice in the dark. it might have been the second-hand smoke but i felt like we were younger than ever, i felt like we were in the safest place we could ever be. i felt like maybe i could teach you things other people would never notice about me. i felt like everything about this place was expanding into things i couldn’t keep. and i knew we were something very static, something that was already falling apart from the beginning. but i’ve always been very fascinated by any sort of love - and i’ll take all alterations. and it’s not that i’m needy, i’ve never been very needy. i’m mostly complacent. but i’m also curious. and that’s the part of me that gets dangerous. the part of me that’s doing things and taking risks and writing poetry and reaching out to people who don’t even know me and scaring the shit out of the calm and complacent side of me. and i’ve spent most of my life convincing myself that this is who i am and i’m not interested in changing. i’m not interested in conquering social interactions or going out of my way to love on a whim. i’m careful and i’m low-pitched. but i feel very accurately, i love very deliberately. and yet i’ve also spent most of my life questioning when i’d ever start to live like i’m not afraid to be here. like i’m not afraid to be noticed in a room full of people. like i’m not afraid to dance or love or like or shake a fucking hand or kiss a goddamn mouth that’s just as young and half-empy/half-full as mine.i talk about change and it’s not that i’m afraid it’s just that this safe. but you know what they say, right? they say that if you want something you’ve never had, you have to do something you’ve never done before.

--Ashli Wood