A Good Girl, In a Box

I see myself through your eyes and I'm a stranger. I don't know the woman that you see.

I look at you and I listen to the things you say about her and I wonder, who is this woman that you speak of?

I'm not sure if I like her.

Yet you've known her for years. You've made assumptions about her and speak them as facts. 

You have no doubts that I am she.

I feel a box closing in around me. Hemmed in. Told by someone else who I am and what I think and why I do what I do.

It's uncomfortable.

I let it all slide over me, feeling a little battered, a little shell-shocked. I feel almost violated because in your assumptions you have taken away my right to be me. You have created, at least in your mind, a vision of who I am.

This other me layers on like a second skin and it's uncomfortable. But I let it sit, try it on for size. Is it real? Is it true? I find that it is true for you, but not my truth.

I walk away and shake it off. Because it isn't me. It isn't my truth.  It is your truth, your perceptions, your assumptions and expectations. It's all you.

Late in the night I sit alone with my tea and my heartache. A lone tear tracks a path down my cheek.  You will never know me because I am already defined in your mind.  You will never see me because all you can see is the box that you've created to contain me. I will never reach you because I can't escape that box. 

I know that you are more comfortable when I am contained.  You need a box to define me so that I make sense to you. You've placed me here for your own sanity,  your own peace of mind. 

I will stay here for you, a good girl in a box, so that you are not stretched out of your comfort zone.   

I will let you define me when I am with you because I love you, because I don't want to lose you. 

I am strong enough to wear your expectations like a second skin, denying my truth so that there is space in your life for me.

For now.

Until the box gets too tight.

Until the expectations get too heavy.

Until your truth becomes my burden.

Then it becomes your choice, to stretch your comfort zone, to let me out of a box, to see who I really am, or to walk away.

I will always love you. No matter what choice you make.

For now, for as long as I can, I will remain a good girl, in a box for you.