I am so sleepy
I am so tired

Lightning candy cane waterfall fountain
Marble stepping stone ice cream mountain
Icicle sunset and hope on the breeze
Aurora beam starshine and chimes in the trees

Lemon glass heartache and the light of the sun
Sea spray noontime and you just wanna run
Ruby red roses and the lamp in the sky
Music box lullaby and the fireworks night
Bubbles on the breeze and the curse is it gone
The tail of a fox and the hooves of a fawn
Novocaine goosebumps and the church of the sea
Soothing cool water and I don't want to speak
Violet splashing water ice moon
Sleepy cool breeze miracle June
The madonna is quiet
The candles are still
The water is rippling on the windowsill
The kite follows the sky and the breath follows the clouds
Candy cane sighing and ice in your mouth
What is killing me
The waves wash against the wishing well
I know what's killing me
The coins shine lying in the clear water
And I am lying in the path of time
I am lying in the path of fate
Still shocked, still unsure what's going on
Trying to hold on to fate
Trying to hold on to fate

The icicles drip into the stream
The water flows like a lilting moonbeam
The golden glass is the ice of the sun
The sugar and silk and silver is spun
The breeze looks out across the bridge
A thousand years without a switch
The million stars are the million moons
A million planes and a million Junes
Singing in the rain is the song of the earth
The beauty of joy and the rush of rebirth
The dancing waves are the showers of rain
That wash over your face and heal the pain
A million candles light the way
Along the poolside the flame light plays
In the ripples of water, the cool chlorine
The quiet water is a soothing dream

What is wrong with me? What is seriously wrong with me? I never, ever actually open up to anybody. I am incapable of it. It is so natural for me to not really share myself with anybody that I do it without even thinking about it. It is so natural for me to completely close myself off that I can do it so deeply while actually thinking I'm opening up. I actually thought I was open to her, I actually thought I was completely sharing myself with her and not holding back. But looking back I realize that I was holding myself back like always. I think of myself as having learned to open up a little more as time has gone on. And I have, in a certain way. I was more honest and openly communicative with her than I could have ever possibly been before in the past. It's partly because of the improvement and personal growth I have made over the last years and partly because of who she is, because we work so well together. It's so natural getting along with her, I actually want to talk to her and explain myself with things and have a shared understanding and a shared story and a shared path. I'm so comfortable with her. It's completely different from how I could be with anyone else, I actually wanted to really be connected always and to explain myself with things and to have a genuine, open, deep connection.

But I was still always holding back. I'm always aware that I'm doing it, because it's just who I am, it's just how I'm comfortable in the world. I knew that I always was some with her. But I didn't realize until the last couple of months how thoroughly I really was holding myself back, how much of myself I was allowing to be missing. I really thought I was thoroughly open with her. Our relationship was really good, and we were really connected, and I really was really there, and at the same time I was still holding myself back, and that hurt things in our relationship. I just never think about sharing. I never think about opening up, and so it goes way too neglected. Letting her learn more about me and be more connected to what's inside me and in my head, my past and my memory and my dreams. And when I do think about it, when I do think about sharing, I usually don't do it, I usually keep it inside. I just always automatically want to listen to her, I want to let her share as much as possible, I want to make her happy and let her feel better by opening up and talking about things. And things work really well when things are working naturally with us, we have a natural balance where it's always right. But because of everything I ended up not sharing often enough or deeply enough, and that hurts things because then she can't feel as close to me as she wants to or as she should. She really loves learning about people and learning about their stories and learning about me, and I just never gave her enough, and I didn't really realize it. I just don't think about sharing enough.

And in so many ways, I'm more closed off than I ever have been before. I've just become so thoroughly pushed inside of myself by everything, my natural state and my default now is in muting myself so much. I don't want to open myself up because I'm afraid of being hurt. I don't want to really be open with anyone because I don't want my true self to be disapproved of. It's so simple but it's everything. It's always how I've been, I've always wanted to deal with everything on my own, it's always been one of my deepest held principles to keep things inside and not open up with my feelings and not complain and be able to deal with things on my own. It's always how I've been, it's just gotten so much worse. And I really thought it had actually gotten better. Because I've had a lot of personal growth I've thought of an important part of it as being me learning how to open up a little better. And I have learned how to open up a little better. It's just my shell has gotten closer and closer to my inside, has shrunk more and more around myself, so that the self that I'm opening up is by default much more constricted, much more muted than it used to be. I'm just so afraid of that feeling of being disapproved of, that feeling of my true self being undervalued by someone I care about, that feeling of being not listened to, that feeling of not being reciprocated. And I have no reason to have that fear with her, she always values me so naturally and so deeply, she is better at that than anyone could possibly be. I just have that fear so reflexively, from what has happened to me before, and I've retreated so much into myself, and silenced so much of my dreams on default. I don't dream anymore, I don't have that feeling where what I'm living actually matters, where I'm working towards something that has yet to be uncovered and discovered but is truly meaningful. I don't have dreams. I'm just existing, waiting for this all to end, waiting until I can leave all of this. I literally don't care about what I do for the rest of my life, I don't have aspirations about changing the world anymore, I literally don't care. I'm just trying to get by and be happy. I don't feel like I'm working towards anything anymore at all. I only care about her, that's something I do really care about, I only care about being with her, about being able to be with her again. I just want to be with her.

A deep part of me really thought that this had all changed completely, that I was much more open now, that I was much more myself than ever before. Because she was so good for me, because she helped me feel like myself so much more, because we were so good together, because she helped me really start living again, I thought it had all completely gotten better. But I'm a lot more broken than I realized, and I was starting from a lower point than I realized. So I really am more myself than I have been in a long long time, because of her, and I really was much more open than I had ever been with another person, and I really was much better. I'm more myself than I have been in a long long time, but with what I present to the world, with how I'm connected to the world, not nearly as much as I used to be. A long long time ago. A part of me disappeared and I've really had trouble getting it back. I just don't want to be a part of things anymore, so deeply. My instinct towards keeping everything inside, towards dealing with everything on my own, towards keeping myself from being hurt by making myself as invulnerable as possible, keeps hurting me in the end.

I don't want to wait until the seas rise and fall
I don't want to wait for the stars to be in thrall
I don't want to wait for the italics to last in the sky
I don't want to wait for the Sultan of Brunei
To get a conscience and give away all his riches
For the peregrine falcon to start swimming with the fishes
I don't want to wait for the quiet night
To glow with the blue of ocean light
I don't want to wait for the ancient stars
To shine down on these seas of ours
The quiet evening churchside pew
On a calm Sunday morning in June
Is the comfort of the soft rainfall
As I hear the footsteps down the hall

So let the castle gates open again
Let the key turn in the lock
Let the fountains flow with water
Let the dust wipe off the clocks
Let the flowers bead with dew
Let the whales sing in the deep
Let the windows open all new
Let me lie down and go to sleep