Putting the Damage On

It's easier to think of things not to say. Not to write. And I think I miss being anonymous. Conspicuously invisible. I stop writing. Instead I keep a pocket journal and jot down thoughts. Sometimes just a word or sometimes some small phrase. Sometimes something more to get it out of my head. In these small bursts of speed, the things I write are for myself and there is no thought of sharing. No censor to fall across my lips or cross a page. And it feels wrong to write where it can't be read and yet it seems I can't write anymore where the world can see.

It's hard to stay honest. With yourself. With your family. With your friends. With a world you just don't know. You worry your words might start an avalanche or make it seem that someone has got to ask you questions about yourself.

All you want is peace. To let certain things go so you can walk away feeling like you've dropped some small burden from your back. All you want is closure. The feeling that something is done and you can let it go. And then you realize that you've never learned how to shut a door. These things that affected you years ago have yet to lose their power.

You try to stop feeling. To pretend you've stopped feeling. You think sometimes you have truly stopped feeling. Slapping your own hand across your mouth to shush the words, quieting the need inside you that constantly seeks the good in people, quieting the cry inside you when they reveal themselves to be at their worst. And it doesn't matter what you say because the people who need to hear are the same people who never listen. They can't get past listening to themselves...

You write their names upon a wall and list your grievances and are not surprised to find that the longest list you write is the one you write about yourself. Because in your heart you do not forgive. Somewhere in a place that cannot be touched there is an anger that burns as hot as molten lava in your core. It is the steel that carries up your spine and steals your breath when you've been hurt. It is the fire that dries your tears and quiets your sobs, leaving you vulnerable only for a moment before it hardens you even more than you'd been before. There is no forgiveness, there is only self-preservation in its place.

Damaged is a word you've secretly used to describe yourself. This hard line across your face and you try to remember how you were as a child... Because you want to take her back and adopt her in to steal back the sunshine in her eyes. You don't know any other way to take it back. There is no magic potion you can drink and you know you've never liked the taste of beer. There is no healing touch to make you whole when every touch just seems to tear you farther apart. There is no finding a new way when every path you choose to walk takes you down the exact same road. And you write about wanting change but are so damn scared of finding it you don't know if you'll ever have the courage to start and stay the course.

All you know is just how tired you really are for having to fight for absolutely everything that you have. And how emotionally exhausted you are of not fighting for everything you've lost.

And that is why when you wake in the middle of the night with far too many thoughts in your head it's never easy to get back to sleep...