It scorched the Earth beneath my feet,
Forever tainted how I experience the world around me.

Things look different. Taste odd. Sound funny.

You can never go back. Never undo.

What's done is done.

And now, well now, you must live in the aftermath.

There has only ever been the aftermath.
  
The ‘before time’ was a story you'd tell yourself to sleep better
        at night.
Stories of being loved, seen, cared for, known.
All fairytales that you'd gorge yourself on.

Anything to take away the pain,
Anything to make the loneliness stop.

As you grew, you leaned on other things to take away the
        feelings:  cut, eat, distract, dissociate.

Make it numb.
Make it tolerable.                    
Make it livable.

It hardened you.
Broke parts of you.
You tried to stay afloat.

Sometimes, only sometimes,
        flirting with the idea of going under,
wishing and praying to let the waves wash you away.

Always trying to rebuild from the rubble at your feet.
Always failing.
        Getting lost in the criticism, the shame, the self-loathing:
        the Mess.

       Hating yourself for not being able to just Clean Up The
       ******* Mess
       That they told you caused.

Sometime, along the way, forgetting:
            It wasn't your bomb.

    You didn't detonate.

It wasn't your dilapidated, abused, messy house - you Just
        lived there.

It wasn't your fault.
It never was.