You Do You

I hear “you do you,” as if I knew who I was in the first place.

As if I have ever been taught how.

The truth is, I only know my limits. I know my words are my own. I know they come from a depth holding trauma that begs me not to speak and truths that make you swallow deeply before letting them out.

So against my own instinct, I speak anyway. I make exceptions. I make room. I give access with backstage passes.

The key is taken. The door is opened. The rooms are scanned. Vulnerability becomes something to sort through. Limits become something to test. Promises are made so believably that even now, after all of it, there is still a small part of me that waits.

That’s my problem.

I sense it before it comes. Before the shift in posture. Before the change in tone. Before realization settles in. Promises of patience and understanding get handed back to me as if they are new. As if my hands haven't been out waiting for them to be given back my whole life.

All I ask for is small. A tiny list scratched on paper with a pencil so dull it can no longer be sharpened. Believe me. That’s it. Believe that when I speak, I am not exaggerating. Believe that my limits are not my choice to make.

And as my warnings come to fruition, I watch belief move while I try, in my own way, to beg for you to stay. I sit and watch the pain pour out of me and stain my shirt as if those tears belong there.

In time, stories change. They get edited. They get interpreted easily as a fractured girl who makes intentional choices. Stories that make you feel better, justified, and familiar. Ones that are told as punchlines at parties. And I let those stories stand. There is no other way. There are no excuses here, just realities. Ones I have to live with, and you certainly do not.

I let you have it, though. The familiar story. The one that paints a picture of a girl undeserving, morphed into a bullet you barely dodged. One that skimmed the surface of your skin like rugburn.

So as you turn away, walking out a door that I never closed in the first place, angry and shocked by the forewarnings I gave long before drinks were poured and plans were made, I hear the timber of your voice as instruction:

“You do you.”

The door slams shut and I do the only thing I know how...

I get ready to pretend to be the “me” that will matter to someone, at some point, once again.