The mention of you used to make my eyes water and my stomach do back flips.
I pretended that your name didn't bother me, and my memories of the nights I spent with my feet pounding on asphalt and not safe in my bed, weren't there.

I pretended that the dreams of piercing screams and puffy eyes didn't wake me up because I was sobbing in my sleep.
That the images of you with a fist raised at mom scarred into my mind by that 7 year old me, with watery eyes and a hoarse throat, didn't burn inside my chest.

When they mention you now, it brings but a sharp pain and a dull ache. And Sympathy. Sympathy for the way you build yourself fast, and then tear yourself down faster. Empathy for the family that destroyed itself by loving you and trying to fix you without your help.

When they mention you now, I see you. Deep underwater in the vast ocean. Sick with self-destruction and guilt. With a weight tied to your ankle and bottle in your hand you can't breathe, but neither can I and you're blaming the sun the moon and the stars but dad, don't you remember? With one hand tight on that bottle, you tied the weight.

If I ever had a choice,
To sacrifice my own life to save others,
I would.

Why?

Because I care?
Maybe.
But mostly because I would feel like the only one who deserves to be the sacrifice.

There are instances where the people who need help are not always the ones who display there sadness,
But also the ones who hide it as well,
When they put on a cracked mask of deception and lies,
Filled with holes and crevices that consume all light,
To keep others from staring.

Sometimes, the ones who need help are the ones who constantly give it,
Trying to find a purpose for themselves by helping others,
They ignore themselves and seek to give them shelter,
Even when they are the ones who have left them alone,  

These people are the ones who suffer silently,
Because they are too afraid of the burden it would cause others,
Because they clearly see that their biggest problems involve seemingly trying to find demons to fight, instead of thanking God that they have none.

There are instances when these people begin to fill with hatred,
It creeps into their soul like spiders on webs,
And as their mind disintegrates under it's own weight,
They will put on their masks of cracks and lies so you don't stare.

There's a point in life when everything you thought you knew
is nothing.
Everything you thought you had laying under the palm of your hand as you flew.
Trying to escape the problems that "they" created for you, right?

There's a point when you look around and wonder where everyone went,
why doesn't anyone call you anymore?
Your phone is off; why is it off?
When was the last time you spoke to your mother?
You missed your sister's birthday last month because you were too ashamed to show your face because of the hours before you spent in the bathroom picking at the sores on your face and neck.

Your eyes are bloodshot and your skin is paper thin and pale,
your teeth are slowly decaying away,
and there comes a time when you realize why no one calls you anymore and why you didn't go to that birthday and why the phone you used to spend hours talking on is off,

But you're just trying to escape the problems that "they" created for you, right?

When I was a girl,
I would always notice how the waves would come crashing to the shore,
Kissing it like a bond unbreakable,
I Would notice how the clouds would float in the sky's endless blue,
As if cradled by a mother that would never drop them,

I would notice how no matter where I would go,
The waves and the clouds always had somewhere to return to,
A place they could find themselves,
A place they could call their own,

When I was a young woman,
I would gaze at the ocean and sky,
Wishing I had a place to call my own as they do,
A place where I could find myself and not feel lost in my own skin,
I wanted to find myself.

When I met you,
When I finally met you,
I thought I had found the place I'd stayed awake at night searching for,
With eyes puffy and body curled into a Celtic knot,
I thought I'd found the place where I could find myself,

When I fell in love with you,
I felt as if I were a newborn baby clinging to the warmth of it's mothers chest,
As if I were the waves kissing the shore and the clouds being held by the sky,
But when I realized that I was not the waves,
That I was not the clouds That I was not the baby,
I crumbled- and you didn't catch me,

Not because you didn't want to but because you were not the place where I could find myself and you knew,
You knew and so I fell,

And while falling I realized that it was not your fault,
That no matter if the sky holds the clouds till the end of time,
and if the sea kisses the shore for an eternity,
The place I had spent sleepless nights searching for in the vast Savannah of my mind and every crevice of your body,
The place I had believed would finally make me feel cradled and accepted,
Was not in you,

It was in no one but myself.

I'm as happy as I'll ever be.