The casual hand is yours

This is one of those moments where I'm realizing how much I hate myself.

The casual hand is yours,
and the flinching one is mine.
Read enough into my affairs,
you'll be perceptive,
you'll understand I'm mostly
unable to accept your aid.
Broken boned and weak-hearted,
still I push and push away.
Everything I do, is not for me.
It is not for you, but more
for your sake. Everything I do,
I do so you won't.
Nobody tells me to stop pushing.
Nobody ever asks me why.
You come along,
hopeless and cowardly.
In an alternate universe
our bodies parallel each other,
face to face, I am shaking,
and the casual hand is yours.
It's tentative, feather fingers at my heart,
gentle press at my diaphragm,
as if to say,
"Breathe, damn it!" in a whisper.
And the flinching one is mine,
the nervous one is me,
oh the voice saying, "Don't,"
when you touch me, when you want me,
is my panicking breath.
Don't get too close,
it just hurts too much,
when you casually get up to leave again.

Reviews

[Steffi]

"and the casual hand is yours.
It's tentative, feather fingers at my heart,
gentle press at my diaphragm,"

[Poeticpiers]

well written expose of mixed emotions When you are not sure if you should or should not