When will i finally learn to do this? I don’t even remember –did I even begin at some point? Perhaps I got complacent and lost track. ?. Did it get to be too much for me, being what I was not? Behaving as I knew not? Are there too many loopholes in these silent arrangements made with the self? Have I put up walls for some and let others slip through the cracks?

Why did I discriminate? Why did I stop to reconsider when I should have been brutal with myself, ruthlessly denying myself both opportunity and pain? Why did I not block them all out once and for all? Over and over again until it became habit, will, nature, choice-less?

But I look at you.

Here you are now where you should not be at all. Were you a lapse of judgment? A weakness made real? An indulgence too extravagant? Was it carelessness on my part or an invitation made despite myself?

It’s late now and too late tonight to lament what is lost and count what is gained. I let you in and I don’t know if I can let you out. Or even how. It’s going to hurt. But you’re worth it.

Yes, I’m sure.

S.A.