"I love you, however; you hold me down."

I found a letter that said:

"I'm sorry that you were asleep when I wrote these words down,"

You'd think I'd ought to be used to that by now.

Save for a few of those late night episodes,

Missed opportunities, and "I Don't Cares,"

There's not a lot that I feel obliged to share or talk about.

I'll have my brother stop by this Saturday to pick up my things,

Just make sure you're not there.

This may sound bad, and don't take it the wrong way..

I love you, however, 

You hold me down [x4]

You're the echoes of my everything,

You're the emptiness the whole world sings at night.

You're the laziness of afternoon,

You're the reason why I burst and why I bloom.

How will I break the news to you? [x2]

Cancel our dinner with Max and Coraline,

feed Jacky's gerbil and try to stay clean.

We'll talk it over after I've had some time alone to sort it out. 

You hold me down [x4]

You're the echoes of my everything,

You're the emptiness the whole world sings at night.

You're the laziness of afternoon,

You're the reason why I burst and why I bloom.

You're the leaky sink of sentiment,

You're the failed attempts I never could forget.

You're the metaphors I can't create to comprehend this curse that I call love..

How will I break the news to you? [x5]

The first time I heard this song, my brain tuned out the heartbreak. My ears picked up the compliments one lover may give to another, but refused to accept the pain that comes with loving someone at the wrong time or loving someone who is bad for you. I wanted it to be a love song that ended happily, even if I knew that wasn't the case. 

Every now and then I listen to this song on repeat a couple dozen times and feel myself wanting to cry until my face becomes physically sore. Because my life has improved so vastly over the recent year, my biggest fear is that someone I love would tell me that I hold them down. I know so many things that are wrong with me, and that isn't just insecurity speaking. I have an overactive imagination, to a fault. I sometimes live in a fantasy world where everything is worse than it truly is. I am so concerned with making things run smoothly that I will fuck up literally everything possible and more just trying to prevent the bad things from happening in the first place. I'm so afraid that anyone I've ever let in and allowed to love me will depart from my life with these exact sentiments: I love you, however; you hold me down. 

There is something great about being able to save yourself from unnecessary and avoidable sorrow. I admire people who are able to judge when something is not good for them any longer. I've done it before, and it's challenging, but everyone deserves to be around others who treat them with respect. I want the people in my life who are close to me to have that kind of skill and thought process when they find themselves faced with troubling relationships. I just never want to imagine that I'm the culprit, that I'm the person who is causing so much pain that my friendship is no longer providing a benefit that outweighs the cost. I don't want to be a burden. I don't want to make anyone cry. 

I will be the first person to say that going into anything with a pessimistic view will certainly turn things sour. If I imagine that the worst possible thing is likely to happen, it will become true. I am a walking self-fulfilled prophecy, and I imagine that from the outside I seem like I hate to be happy, I just worry a lot. I react poorly to most things, good and bad. I'm working on my faults, but they still hurt other people. Going through the process of change doesn't guarantee there will be no more tears. There are always going to be more tears. 

None of this knowledge stops me from thinking, "what if someone is holding onto these thoughts? What if I'm toxic? What if someone wants to let me go, but doesn't know how to say it?" 

These are the thoughts that keep me up at night, that make me seem sad when everything in the world is right. I'm afrraid I'm holding you down.