It’s hard for me to trust, I’ve found. I don’t do it easily. When people try to make me, I just grow all the more wary. It just takes time with me.

Some would say I’m a snob, and if I were to pick apart my heart, piece by piece, maybe I’d find a trace of that here or there. But, mainly, my heart is so tender. And I can’t give it easily.

No truer have I learned this living in community. People cycle in and out of this house in intervals of 3 and 4 months. We live and work together, rooming in large, filled rooms.

And the goal, the assignment, if you will, is to build relationship while accomplishing official duties. So, in a sense, being social, is part of the job. This used to be very hard for me. The first time I had to do this, I cried every other week until I finally packed up and went home.

This time around, it is much easier. But, I still don’t trust easily. These relationships run fast and intense, but my heart holds on, so scared and uncertain.

If I let myself love you, can you handle it? If I let myself love you, will you love me back? I can tell you like who I pretend to be, but if I show you who I really am, will you still love me? Could you handle the weight of who I am,  a struggle of the darkness and the light co-existing in delicate balance? And what if, I left all my walls down, and stand before you, open, and exposed, and I don’t pass your standards and you walk away? I don’t think my tender heart could handle that. 

But, I am learning how to trust. Maybe. Maybe that just sounds good. I think mainly I’m just realizing what a broken mess I am.

Trust. This is the subject of the piece in my poetry book, Heart by the Sea.