I’m trying to proselytize my loneliness

out into the world. I take the tools I do have—

the words—-the punctuation landing in my chest

like bouquets of bullet holes—the grammatical errors

splattering up against the wall—my primary sources,

my persuasive essays—and I carve an explanation

out of the table scraps. I tell them

the amount of things I haven’t done

nearly exceeds the amount of people I’ve been,

but they just don’t understand. 

I don’t either, honestly. When I met her on the coldest summer day

I was too scared of the leeches to dip into the lake. I heard what happens 

when they latch onto you—it’s just like what happens

when I latch onto someone else, when I find someone

I want to love—-love, love, and then they’re salting me away—I heard what happens

if you let them suck at you for too long, I heard what happens and I’m not about to take the risk, 

don’t ask me again, just get out, just get out of here. I’m

not about to be brave for someone who hasn’t committed 

to loving me.

I watch them flutter along the streets and I watch them hold each other close and I think

I might be a bad person. I’m too alien, you see;

I’m floating right outside the concept of normalcy,

too intangible to grip down and pull myself in, too translucent

to be understood. I am never witnessed

in good faith. I am never witnessed

with faith. I hate all of them, you know. There’s something wrong

with me, some grotesque monsterflaw written across my flesh

that is visible to every eye except mine. I want to walk through the veil

and step into the lake but it’ll just spit me back out. I want to step through the veil 

and walk into society but I learned how to talk a little

bit too late and now I’m a factory reject. If it’s easy for you,

then go to hell. If it’s easy for you, then I hope you get swallowed up

in the hungry vortex of my loneliness, I hope you die. I don’t like the person

I am becoming in the absence of connection. I don’t like the person I am

at all.