Have you ever had the feeling

that the world is too loud

So you scream

in an effort to counter it out

But it doesn't work, it can't

and your knees buckle, you fall down

Ears bleeding, eyes wet, heart torn,

as your body shuts down...

Then, finally, the world is not loud

Sure, they gawk and gaze

as you curl into yourself

Folding and falling and feeling numb

Suffocating from the lack of air in your lungs

Going from too loud to silence in a snap, all at once

takes a toll the more it happens,

because it always happens more than --

It just happens, and happens, and happens again

in a circular pattern, like this, with no real end

Until one morning, you wake up, and hear all the sounds

Of the world around you... but there's no need to drown it out

You hear the hum of electricity hidden behind your walls

The crows cawing and birds tweeting

and, damn it all, you hear everything

In the rise and fall

of the breath in the chest of who matters most of all

What do you say

when you suddenly miss

a person who

hasn't been there in years

Someone who, somehow,

stopped existing

until a sudden memory sparked...

It isn't so hard in this day and age to have that feeling

We are constantly reminded of "memories"

old photos and videos that seem almost archaic now

I don't know why- the picture wasn't even of you

Felix, you were tucked away in the corner

Your hair slicked back and in a suit

That was all you could see- your back- in that photograph

from April

April 10, 2015

...about a year later, we stopped speaking

and I hated it

I learned a lot about myself

I continued to learn about myself

I felt naive and small and vulnerable and unloved

by my best friend who shared in all my

strangeness

weirdness

awkwardness

and stood by me anyway

Did I not notice because I was autistic?

Did you know that I was autistic, then? I didn't.

Did I not notice because I was taught

and groomed

by a pedophile

to ignore the atrocities of manipulation?

Did you know I was groomed?

I think I told you that night-

how much men had hurt me.

The painful things I had seen

and the forceful things I endured

but in your loving me

You still chose to hurt me

and break your promises.

Is it because I loved you?

Perhaps I did not love you

the way you had wanted

but you were my best friend

A role you created and casted yourself in

Of your own accord...

If you had asked, I would have given,

perhaps,

a different thing.

Was it because I was asexual?

I didn't know that until a few years later.

You, I'm sure, never knew and could've never guessed.

Well, I'm out: I'm demisexual.

I'm queer and here and have been since 2017.

I want to get married.

It makes me think of dancing.

That day way back in 2015 changed my life

and another day in 2016 changed it more

Why was high school so hard?

I stopped dancing, Felix. I missed you and it made me think of you.

I stopped being a good friend to people.

I still can't fully trust a person to love me

and all my strangeness,

especially as a friend.

I have 2.

An ex boyfriend and a kindred soul.

He, she, and I have not spoken in some time

for no particular reason

other than I am no longer a very good friend.

Yoz and Jas

I say your name

and I know your face

and I am sorry

for never being truly better.

That boy that I was with

The one who told me to block you

out of my life

for you were manipulating me

in ways I would have never seen...

He and I were partners for 7 years

and then he left one Mother's Day

for someone else

Yet I am writing about you, who I knew for far less time

I want to be married.

My partner lays across from me now

and he is beautiful.

He dances,

not very well, yet,

but we practice.

He cooks, and cleans, and sings

Although he is far better at listening

Sometimes

he is too much for me

and I am too much for him

but we share

the same weirdness

I still live with my parents.

You saved my life once,

did I ever tell you?

I hope you know that

when it gets very bad

(or got very bad,

I have not cried over a knife in the shower

in a very long time)

...I suppose therein lies the awkwardness

of the oversharing

the info and trauma dumping

the mental disease...

When it got very bad

I'd remember your voice

Why is the sky blue?

Did you know? What I was doing, then?

I missed you so much

I adopted a bit of your laugh

I can't change it now, the wheezing, smoker's cough like laugh

It's not quite yours and not quite mine

but it is there sometimes

However, it is there

less and less

I loved you so much.

Why did you hide?

Why did you lie?

How could you have not known...

I would have been happy

to have been your friend

and listened to your woes

and your worries

your fears were my own

but you hid them

and hurt me instead.

I justified our separation

by saying

that I was clingy

and you did not love me

as I had;

you did not hold me in your heart

as I had;

you did not see my face in the space between the stars

where I saw you

every night

after

that talk on my porch

after

you made and broke that promise

to stop hurting me.

I guess I was never a very good friend

but I know how to love someone.

I want to get married

and my partner knows me, all.

He knows of you, for he knows of all who have hurt me

He knows of my pain as well as my transgressions

He knows my fears and flaws

He wants me to be happy

but every time I think of a real wedding

One where he and I share our love

With "family and friends"

I think of that day

April 10th, 2015

and think I should perhaps elope

and run away

before any meddling hands can get in the mix

I did not eat that day, not well

I did not eat well any day after

not until I was 19.

Do you know what happened then?

19

I could have left home

I was on the right track

I was perfection

until I wasn't

and My Hands began.

My Hands,

they're a whole thing.

Doctors still don't know what happened

but I was bedridden- not hospitalized- for a year

I lost it

I lost me

I had more time to think about why the sky was blue

I loved you, so I looked for you.

I found you on Facebook tonight.

Did you know I kept your phone number?

I missed you. And I don't delete numbers.

You are not the only person I missed, dear,

but the first I had dared to love as closely as family

Darla... she was a good friend. I still write because of her.

Aure, in my yearbook and choir and dance and others who don't know why I cannot face them.

I am sorry my friends, you may never know.

My partner and I,

we are planning a nerd wedding.

We want to allow our guests to join in a huge themed DnD campaign

We want to theme the tables after our favorite fandoms

We want to dress the part and play the role

My husband-to-be

he may sing and cook and clean

but I dance and write and, well, I also sing and cook and clean

Where was I going with this?

Our wedding plans,

they are fantastical

so it is easy to see them in a fantasy

but now, tonight, I have seen-

I have relived-

the memories

of the 15th

The 15th year of this absurd life. Not to be dramatic but holy shit that party was a hot mess

I want to be married

but my wedding...

should not ever be like the 15th

It is a source of great fear for me.

I no longer enjoy celebrations of myself. I try, but that birthday stays in my mind, all the time.

It is easier

to be afraid

and to be

a not very good friend

a distant autistic

a hidden voice

a closeted fear

rather than let my wedding become

a repeat of the 15th

on April 10th, 2015

I am so afraid and I miss you and why did you do it?

Did you know? Did you?

How could you have known that this is something that I would think about

for the rest of time?

From then on, I never forgot.

I always wait for the next shoe to drop.

But I've finally found the one person

who makes those kinds of thoughts stop.

I want to get married and it makes me think of dancing

and that makes me think of you.

What do you say

when you suddenly miss

a person who

hasn't been there in years

Someone who, somehow,

stopped existing

until a sudden memory sparked...

is it

Weltschmerz?

where reality can never satisfy the expectations of the mind?

is it

Waldeinsamkeit?

the feeling of being alone in the woods?

is it

Sehnucht?

longing for that which may or may not exist?

God, is it just nostalgia?

I don't know...

I just miss my friend.