I hate it when people think calling a space ‘safe’ will make me feel safe. Like saying ‘I love you’ doesn’t make me feel loved if I don’t already feel that way. And saying ‘you can trust me’ doesn’t engender trust. Telling me to ‘calm down’ might cause me to stop expressing how I feel, but it doesn’t change how I feel. Sometimes nothing in the world is more scary than ‘don’t be afraid.’ If other people have discomfort about my emotions and how I express them; they can take a time-out to deal with their own. Understanding, of course, that if I’m upset with someone’s behavior, the feelings don’t magically vanish or resolve themselves when that person is out of sight. They may idle, but unless they are seen and acknowledged without shame or judgment, they’ll still be there. Hurts untended don’t go away. I’m sensitive, and it’s one of my strengths. People like it when it benefits them, when I can be compassionate and sensitive to their needs. But I’m sensitive to my own, as well. Everything has a flip side. If you don’t want the responsibility of taking care not to walk all over someone’s feelings, or consider feelings you don’t understand as valid, then don’t make friends with sensitive people. Insensitive people are the majority, you’ve got plenty. If you want sensitive friends, you’ll need to reflect back that sensitivity. Don’t wanna? Leave ‘em alone, oh Lennie from ‘Of Mice and Men.’ If you can’t be gentle, don’t grab for gentle souls. If you’re clumsy, admire what’s delicate from a distance. Or deal with the consequences of breaking what you admired so ardently. Seriously, with the grabby-hands and poorly-chosen-words and zero-impulse-control and addiction to being too busy to be held accountable. I’ve had it. Ignoring uncomfortable things sometimes makes whole entire people and relationships go away. Unsolicited advice is a great way to shut down my trust and desire to connect and share with you. I’m only interested in artists and survivors, these days — those who have known great beauty and great pain. But even among such as these, it’s too rare to find a peaceful balance of connection yet individuation. To be stronger together, and yet be whole and entire separate people. I have to resist scarcity-mentality, fear-based and money-hungry fixations to have a home safe from the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. It never ends. Counting beans won’t save us. It won’t invite love. It will destroy peace and stability. We need time to grow, to thrive, to heal, to build trust and peace. There is time here, but where does it go? People here seem insubstantial as ghosts, haunted by lives and choices of their own making. Always running away, ghosts in the forests. Emptied, permanently, and emptying me. I need to be filled, not with poison, no, not with sex or money, not with someone else’s shit. I need to be filled with peace. Safety. Rest. Things money can rent the temporary illusion of, a mirage too soon to evaporate and leave holes hungrier than before aching to be safe enough to rest. The one who sleeps beside the water hole does not dream of thirst.