Fighting.

Well I'm fighting for air and fighting for my spot in the front seat of the car so I can fight this headache as best as I can. And I'm fighting to avoid eye contact so I can fight the tears forming from the ducts in my eyes that I thought laid dormant, or maybe had even passed away with any semblance of innocence that festered in my body. And I'm fighting back those ugly thoughts about being ugly, those worthless thoughts about the meaning of worth and those fuzzy, fragmented thoughts about anxiety. I'm fighting them will the broken hands of someone who gets violently ill and violently angry and fights until they can't see shapes and colors anymore.

I'm ignoring the messages about my health and the worries everyone has about it and I'm keeping everything locked inside of me, tight and snug, hollow and sad like dollar store bibles or the empty promises of teenagers who don't know anything about the way the world works. I'm holding grudges and growing them like garden plants, watering them every day with a renewed anger and fertilized contempt. And I'm keeping my mouth shut in the silence of this car, fighting the sad stories that I want to tell. And I'm fighting the desire to write to you and ask why you stopped calling, stopped replying, stopped loving me, stopped keeping your promise. And I'm fighting to ask when you stopped being interested in all my quirks and my one-liners, all my stories that don't have points or endings, all the lies I told and why I told them. And I never lied to you, I just told you lies from my past and how my past is my past and I can't go back and change it. And you pushed my hair out of my eyes and behind my ear and fought my tongue with your tongue when you kissed me for a little longer than you meant to.

But I'm fighting the cynic in me that says you never meant a word that you said. And its a fight to the death between the optimistic lover and the hardened realist, the one with all the experience, the one who helps me make decisions, the one who tells my body "no" when my ill-informed heart pumps passion through my veins instead of logic. But with every kiss and every touch and every promise, between every time I told the truth and every time you held me tight while I tried to fall asleep, I fell in love and the optimist won. And I said you were everything, again my better judgment.  But I was telling the truth and falling for you and fighting my realist brain who told me to stop getting so attached and then listed the reasons why. And now I'm constantly fighting tears and temper tantrums and when I'm asked why my behavior is so bad, the answer is always "I don't know". Its always "I don't know" because "love" isn't a sufficient answer, so "I don't know" seems to do just fine.

I'm constantly fighting my bed, because it sucks me in, and it tells me to stay when I want to pull away, and that sounds so familiar. So I stay close to that familiarity and some days I'm okay and some days I'm not. When you're around and interested and the nicest boy on the planet is when I'm not sad, when I'm better than okay, when I don't feel like fighting to breathe or live or function or smile. But it seems that when you're not here, its a constant struggle. When you weren't here before, I wasn't feeling a thing and functioning okay and I was only fighting in video games or with my strained vocal chords, to get a point across that I couldn't in any other way. And that was more like arguing, but now I have nothing to argue about.

I'm terrified because there's so much to be scared of and I'm sad because of all the things I could be sad about. And I'm hopelessly in love with someone who I'm fighting to prove that I'm good enough to keep around, even when there's been no spoken or written disinterest. And I'm fighting the regrets of not having you sooner, I'm fighting the people who tell me to take it slow.

I'm fighting myself from getting too attached, I'm fighting the distance between my house and your house and my feet from the ground whenever you tell me you love me or something sweet.

I'm fighting the jealousy that flares up inside of me sometimes. I'm fighting the insecurities that sit tight in my stomach.

I'm fighting the whining and the desire to have you all to myself.

I'm fighting the mood swings and the sadness that comes along with this separation anxiety.

I'm fighting my desire to talk to you all the time.

I'm constantly fighting, clawing, screaming, scratching, battling, dueling.

I'm constantly at war with myself and with everyone around me.

I'm fighting as I write this.

I'm fighting all of this, because I'd fight to the death just to be with you in the end.