Laying With the Wrong Person

The only way that this will work is if I keep you at bay; don’t let you get inside the wounded, bruised mess that is my heart. When you talk--your words so void of the deepness that I long for--I realize that you are decidedly not the man I should be sleeping next to. I realize that I’ve made the biggest mistake of my life, again. But for whatever reason—your smile, your eyes, your smell—-I can’t bring myself to do the right thing. Just tell you that I am not into this, that you are not what I need right now. Instead, I continue to let you think, believe, feel, get attached. What am I supposed to do? Crawl back to my own bed, alone, cold, unwanted? I’d rather keep you distant but right next to me. Keep the ideal you—-the one I was praying that you would turn into when we met-—in my thoughts and in my mind. Does this make me desperate, shallow, cruel? I’d rather lay with the wrong person knowingly than spend another night alone. I’m a mess of miscalculations and misreadings, but does that mean that I should go back to alone? A brave person would come clean, would admit to only needing you for your embrace. But brave I am not. I am afraid. I am weak-kneed. I am terrified to wake up and realize that I am totally, utterly and completely alone. So I keep you at bay, all the while knowing that you are falling and falling and that I am just waiting for the right moment to slip out into the night, away from you and the bucket of emotions you are poised to pour on me.