chatterbox.

i am full to bursting with words. i have anecdotes and tales and things i am desperate to say (though i am more than a little afraid to dwell on them, for fear that speaking their name will cause them to shimmer away like a soap bubble). i am full of dreams, i am drunk on my own efficiency, i am okay in my own skin. i have...i have felt my breath catching in my throat lately in a way that is not connected to tears, and i'm so scared to stop and relish and soak it all in, because it might be gone tomorrow if i stop to look.

which is awful. because i want to freeze this feeling in amber and wear it over my heart. i want to be able to heat it with my skin in those dark moments when i need to remember how it feels to just feel...just feel okay about things. better than okay; good. exhausted, but good.

i need to remember how this feels when the inevitable crash hits; so i can hold onto it as i pull myself out of the chasm.

...i want to say it all out loud but i don't know if you're still watching. not that it should matter at this point, but you still haunt my dreams and nightmares; i'm watching the scars heal but they are still there, red and raw. marks on my heart that are still tender enough to make me flinch. not exactly a fear of disapproval (not anymore), but...of something. something i can't put my finger on.

i know you think i never listened to you, but i did. and what i learned, what i picked up, has informed the shape of my life ever since. i don't really trust anything anymore, not even my own heart, which has been beating wounded for longer than i care to recall. thank god it beats so loudly that sometimes i can't help but listen to it. that sometimes it overshadows the voices in my head.