Month of Poetry #15: Lament of the Extrovert

if it is the case
that I am intense -

that I fill up the sky, and overwhelm,
a little too much, maybe

then, I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be
I don’t mean to overflow on you

extroversion isn’t always a blessing
energy vampire my introvert brother says,
sucking the juice from those you glom onto – 

I don’t intend it so. I try
to withdraw and hold back, but it feels unnatural
to me, the wide-open book
quick to feel a bond, for those I’m bonded to,
arms wide to catch all the sorrows of my interlocutors
heart wide to share my own

but I don’t intend it so. not to be too much
or ask too much
never to cause that pricklish discomfort
that prompts the retracted mind, the cooled word
never that.

so if it is the case that I am intense
well, I’m sorry. I’ll try to be less
or less constant, anyway
to not exhaust you with my conversation
to grow trust slowly, carefully -

to keep you my friend
(if you want it so).

- Kathy, 15/1/14