I tried to make it better but I made it more sick
I tried to make it right
And now awake at night
I know reality was getting in the way

Promises I Can’t Keep / Mike Shinoda, Post Traumatic

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I want to breathe, but all that escapes me is dead air. I’m blinking, I’m seeing, but there’s nothing encompassing my view. The lights are off, nobody’s home. I lie awake inside myself until my little soul decides to rest. But then I wake up in an anxious state, with my heart beating at a startling rate. Terrified of the dark, I can’t close my eyes. I can’t sink back into that nightmare…

…But was that a nightmare? No, it was reality. It was my reality once. Why has it crept up into my consciousness? I hear her screams and feel the swelling anger and depression bleeding into my lungs. She means no harm now, maybe she didn’t then, but it still cuts through me like a raging forest fire. The backdraft suddenly comes from nowhere and I’m burning all over again. It’s all-consuming, and I can’t escape. Only time and slow serenity can wash it away temporarily.

I’ve forgiven, I’ve moved on, but still the memories don’t really leave.

I’ve slipped away from people. I don’t want their touch, I don’t want to be embraced, I don’t want to be comforted. I find comfort in nobody except my own solitude. It’s happening again, and I’m uncertain when it’ll subside. I used to crave the comfort of another; it’s all I needed to survive. It was my oxygen, my solace, my lifeline. To be cured and loved by the one I loved… that notion has died. It died a couple years ago. I spent a long time after that chasing that same comfort, but I never found it. Then one day I realized that it wasn’t the answer anymore. I had been chasing a false cure. Because in the end, it just left me more empty than when I started searching for it.

You may scoff and wonder how I could possibly think this way. How could I shy away from human interaction? How could I give up on love? Well, to be perfectly honest, I think love gave up on me, too. I’ve become so apprehensive, and now I find no use in pursuing it because I still feel numb after all is said and done. Something died in me awhile ago, and I thought some people and encounters thawed my frozen heart, but I was wrong. It may have melted just a little bit, only to freeze up again. I haven’t found anything that can melt it completely… maybe I never will.

I can’t apologize for my numbness, why would I? I can’t force myself to feel something I can’t actually feel. I’ve tried, I really have. I’m broken, and I just don’t care anymore.

The words I hear and the lines I read are blurry. Everything melts together as I drift away. My dissociative state brings me to another dimension where nobody can find me. I’m not living a lie, I’m just half alive. Still searching for things to fill the void, but even that is a chore that feels impossible. I used to find momentary comfort in buying things, but I don’t even bother with that anymore. What’s the point? Happiness is slipping away, and I’m hanging by a thread that is tied to a butte. I’ve plateaued for what seems like an eternity. Can I cut the thread that I’m hanging from and fall into something more promising? I can’t tell from this point.

Perhaps this state of indifference is something I just need to surrender to for now.

I’m fading away, and those who love me may let me go… and if so, that’s my own cross to bear. The path of solitude has steered me away from any other path, and in time I’ll forge a new path. I have nowhere else to go but forward, so I’ll slowly crawl my way to my destination, wherever that may be.

 

 

One day I’ll find my way again.
Until then, this haunting apathetic bliss is all I have.

 

 

xoxo,