So, I write.

I'm still here, you know. This poet, hiding behind feelings behind thoughts behind words. Clutching to the truth lest it be stolen away from me.

Crazy. Stupid. Drunk. Liar. Those labels have been flung at me time after time in desperate cruelty. None of them have stuck. I may as well be called a Giraffe. I'm not one of those either.

How do I love someone like that, someone who's so convinced that she's unlovable that she knows, just knows, that there must be something wrong with anyone daring to try?

I don't, that's how. Not anymore.

Instead, I gave it everything I had and then, after a while, I gave up. I buried what was left and now I pretend that there is nothing. That maybe there was always nothing. That maybe it was all just a mistake, or a misunderstanding, or a delusion.

But, deep inside, a part of me still knows the truth, and I cling to it.

I cling to the truth that only I will ever truly know, and I try to hold myself together.

Sometimes, no matter how tight my grip, a little bit of truth escapes.

And those prying eyes, they see.

Sometimes, I write.