Scattered Secrets

Over the years, I scattered secrets and parts of me like seeds and waited for them to take root. It wasn't something I did on purpose. It was only when months had passed that I noticed a dozen new flowers fighting their way through the concrete, and I failed to realise they were all mine. 

I guess that's what happens when you give a little bit of yourself to everyone you meet. Everyone gets a fragment. A little piece. Someone takes away your laughter on a hazy night out, blurred by vodka and too loud music, bottles it all up and keeps it to themselves. 

On sad days, they'll open the bottle, eager to have it all spilling out once more and they'll revel in the memories, thinking of a night with no rules with a smile on their face. Another one takes your first love, that boy that lived across the road from you, and they'll see him half a lifetime later and they'll know it's him, though you've never properly introduced them. She tells him it feels like they'd known each other forever, but they never even think to mention you. 

A girl you meet at a concert sees the way you sing your heart out to your favourite song, and she takes that one and makes it her own. You give away your favourite food and drinks and movies and books and you change people's lives with things that seem so small and you will never know because most of the time they are no longer around to tell you. They have already moved on. 

And I met someone new last month, and he told me I can't go on living like this. Giving away parts of myself like free gifts. He told me I can't be a friend to all. He doesn't get that this isn't what I want to be. Someone who gives and gives and finds traces of themselves in other people's faces, in their lives and in the way they talk. I've just never known how to be any different.