it hurts me to think how hurt the world is now
everyone faces so much challenges, just from dealing with others
it hurts to think that everyone has felt insecure, like crap and **** too
it hurts to know that while i feel bad about myself and jealous of someone else, they might not feel like enough too
it hurts to know people hurt themselves on purpose to deal with the pain others put them through, the pain they put their own selves through sometimes,
it hurts to know it's normal,
it's normal for everyone of us to be hurting so much
yet still go on, live. there is beauty in that, knowing we are surviving.
we are broken but we are healing, slowly.

You're holding the rope so tight
Your fingers,
Your palms,
Ripped open
Hurting
Bleeding

Yet you can't let go
You just can't let go
What if you lose?
But what if
What feels like a loss
Is better than winning?
Better than
That long lasting
Dull Ache,
Endless Bleeding

Even if you don't let go
Who says you'll win?
At some point
Your arms give in
You have to let go
Anyway

But what if you let go
Right now?
What if
There's Relief?
What if
You're finally
Able to breathe?

Forget winning
Forget losing

Sometimes
You just have to
Let go

I waited
Seconds
Minutes
Hours
Days
Weeks
Months
Years
Nothing changed
Nothing healed

I've become convinced that love ends in pain.

Maybe not in eternity, but in this life, I believe that's true. Love in this life has an end already written. And it hurts. Giving into love is like locking yourself in a prison, knowing that a lethal injection is the only way out. I used to think that didn't matter to me... "It's better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all." Well my defense mechanisms are screaming the opposite. They're making the part of love that's supposed to be sweet have a bitter aftertaste. I thought I would choose love, even knowing the end. Now love's been presented to me so nicely, but my guts are in a knot and that lethal injection is haunting me. How do you defy every self-preservation bone in your body for love?

To make it even more difficult, I don't see anyone else struggling with this decision. Other people just embrace the lethal injection without a second thought. They're okay with the trade. They don't even care if a key to the prison exists cause they would never so much as think about taking it. Love is worth it to them...

Why isn't it to me?

What made my defense mechanisms so heightened that I can't deny them for something I want. For something that would be really good... Maybe a key doesn't exist. But my mind found another solution: don't go into the prison. Just avoid the whole thing to begin with. So here I am, stuck in the middle. In what feels like a perpetual struggle between my heart wanting something beautiful and good, but my brain being in fight-or-flight mode trying to protect me. It's exhausting. It's a lot easier just being alone... My life was still so full...
The "happily ever after" side of me wants to believe I'll choose love. But my brain is a realist. And it has a hard time believing I'll choose the prison...

The grasp you held on my heart
once felt reassuring, securing even.
But your fingerprints left bruises,
each one an echo of your lies.

My heart became a weathered map:
torn corners by sharp words,
crumpled from venomous lies,
the trail of betrayal tracked across it.

You made me flinch at kindness,
distrust soft spoken words,
run from help, for fear
it was another trap.

Even amiability makes me brace for pain
and I know-
I will never be the same, because
love feels like a fairytale
written for someone else—

and I can only imagine the ending.

i'm not sure where i am anymore
i think i've been lost for a while
i can no longer tell the difference between up and down or right and left
i don't know how to find my way
i don't know if there is a way
perhaps i'm meant to stay here
but though i've stayed here for so long
i'm still not sure where i am