Stop from stopping

Remembering details about people
The things they say
Their small gestures and habits

More than anything, the words they say almost always gets stuck in your mind
You may not say anything when they say it
Like a faulty wifi
You struggle to make the connection.

You may be able to understand their meaning
But your mouth doesn't have the courage to respond the way you truthfully would
Inwardly, you place these words, now typed and printed into a document,
Slotting it into the library that mostly doesn't see the daylight.

You have a response, but it doesn't surface
You just smile and look to the ground, for whatever reason
There's gold down there or something.

You know you have to change
You know it's getting worse and worse
You overcompensate by being overly enthusiastic about spending time together, by being overly concerned, by writing overly lengthy cards.
As if your presence alone will be capable of transmitting all that in your head,
You trudge around with them like a kid with a lollipop in hand.

You wonder about the kind of person they are
You review the words they have picked---over and over again,
Trying not to jump to a conclusion, but very much wanting to understand the meaning of it.

You write like some autistic kid on some anonymous blog

And you stop.
You know the solution, but it takes something.
It takes, for whatever reason, something you lack.
Something you lost along the years
Something you didn't deem important till now

You know the reason behind all these
But it's taking way too much courage to write it down here.

And you should probably start
By responding
By not just smiling
By opening that mouth

It's weird, but it feels like you have been overly open about yourself these days
And it's stopping you from talking as much
At the same time, you have to stop from stopping.

Sorry, refrain from stopping.
There, all better.