How

How can I tell you what I feel if you do not listen?
How can I go about showing you the way when you will not see?
Giving and giving and giving of self. Day in, evening out.
Being, feeling, wanting so much to show exactly how much is within me.
Wanting so desperately to touch, to hold, to soothe.
To be looked at with pride, with humor, with warmth.
Understanding.
Reciprocation.
To make it quite plain that it is never my intent to wound.
That my hands are open.
Accepting.
Silence an enemy,
Feeding on insecurity, fear, things twisted to a place where there ought not be one.
My pride.
A force all its own, wrapping me in hazy armor.
Afraid to reach out and take, wanting to be taken.
To have the choice removed from me.
No doubt, no hesitation, no refusal.
Making me stand still,
When I should be running towards.
Always better in written word.
When I try to speak I choke up,
Weep.
So I sing for you, like a nightingale.
Letting my soul free.
I am an emotional being.
Strong and secure on one hand.
Fragile as delicate crystal on the other.
Do you not see when you look in my eyes,
All that I am?
All that I want to be.
Can you not sense what is in my mind,
On my heart, what is weighing down my soul.
The joy that lights up my face whenever you're around.
The music that leeches into every cell of my being.
Can you not take what is rightfully yours.
That when I seek solitude it is to control the storm
Raging within me.
To tamp down the pain, to turn inward.
That you feel like a part of me that I was born with.
Without you at my side is unease.
Displacement.
Great sadness.
I do not see the gruff exterior.
The cad.
I dive much deeper down and see a beautiful soul
Cloaked in pain.
I see the man, the boy.
The one I yearn for, to be an anchor for.
A respite from the howling winds and aching cold of life.
The haven.
The clear stream easing great thirst.
The gentle rains giving life back to the earth.
See me.
For like the flower beneath the weeds, I am there if you but look.

One can but hope.