Basements

I didn’t know how to tell you, so every night I laid there next to you hoping that I would gather the courage to wake you up and spill it all.  But I laid there and watched the fan turn.

I had so many feelings but each one I buried deeper than the next. I collected a pile of feelings in my basement like people collect old clothes. And instead of spring cleaning i let the walls crack and the boxes gather dust.

Sometimes the clutter would spill out into the hallway and I would wait and hope that you would notice. But you didn’t notice. So I found myself bringing bags of old feelings around to friends hoping I could open up. But years of not dealing with the issues leaves you with cold new habits.

So when I broke down in my car on that cold night I let my tears freeze where they were. Years of hiding and I had no where left to run.

But how do you tell someone what you can’t even put into words? How do you tell someone about the years of crap you hid in the basement of your soul?

I was scared you would run. I knew when I told you how I felt, asked for what I needed, you would leave. So I put it off and came up with excuses why it was better to wait. It ate me alive.

I started slipping further and further away. I detached myself from it all. I hid in the basement with all my buried feelings. And you didn’t even notice I was down there.

When I finally realized how far I’d fallen I reached out to you. And you rolled over and fell asleep. And then I realized why some people don’t have basements.