Lately, I’ve felt as though I am lacking any definition. The center of my person is an amorphous cloud of wants and desires and dislikes that I can never quite hold on to. I am the debris that circles the planet Saturn; whole from a distance, but up close the viewer can see that the ring is just a loose collection of matter that is willing to orbit whatever planet is willing to give it the most gravitational attention. If the planet disappeared the debris would slowly drift into the nothingness. People are my gravity and I am willing to shape myself into whatever they need me to be.I used to define my shape through my significant other, let’s call them L. L and I decided that we shouldn’t be together, that we needed to find our own shapes. I felt as though we were two planets, coexisting in a dual orbit. I was very wrong. When they left, I found myself to be the ring that had formed around them. Now I have assembled the debris into a man-shaped cloud, but anyone that is close enough can see the empty space that fills most of my body.I defined myself as “the good boyfriend” for so long that I no longer know who I am without someone else there to tell me how good I am. I defined myself not from my own thoughts or actions but from those of the person that I loved. I gave this person the power to define me, not because they wanted it but because I didn’t want to define myself. I didn’t want to look at the empty space and fill it in, I wanted someone else to look at the empty space and tell me what the cracks meant to them. I still do. I am made of many loose parts that all wish to be loved, but none of those parts want to love each other. They crash and they break and they reform as parts of myself that are too small to define, too small to be a whole. I am made of the broken pieces of stars and I am too weak to form into my own planetary body. Behold, the massive man-shaped cluster in the sky. The great constellation of “Rob”. Use your imagination to give me form, for I am nothing but the perceptions of others. So define me, make me whole. I need to be whole again.
-RobMeBlind @RobsWrittenRecord
