The second hand unwinding:

I'm not okay. Which is okay. It's okay. I'm okay. The situation is okay, the night the ending to the night.

Everything else I want to write here is melodramatic. Is hyperbole. Is you will get your feelings hurt in the morning.

Where do I store this if not here?

I first wrote: Where do I stare if not here?

I could have written: Where do I share if not here?

Here in the tunnel dark, the lights receding, the packing sealed and made to look like what's beside it, hidden:

How do I tell the difference between the person I am and the person I want to be?

I have a natural reaction (which is aggressive and hurt and insecure), but that's tiresome and cliche.

So I try something else, something with more respect than my gut reactions feel to the person across the table... 

But I'm posturing. I feel like a fake. I feel like a good person and a fake, which is worse.

Maybe the test is how it makes me feel an hour later. When my blood pressure has normalized.

When I've listened to sad songs and wallowed, tucked my head in my jacket in this cold room.

I feel like, to be my best self here, requires letting go a piece of me I'm scared to lose, maybe not ready to lose.

This is moving forward, isn't it? This is what it feels like? Sadness at leaving your hurt/anger behind?

Moving toward understanding someone who is hurt too, who is not trying to hurt you, who is loving you.

Knowing what I should do and say and feel and half doing those. What an asshole I can be.

I keep almost writing fakery.

You fall, I don't catch you, time after time.

I'm just sitting in the sun / the dark with my legs ajar like car doors.