Broken

I was broken then and I am broken now. It doesn't matter how long I play the part of someone whole, it doesn't matter how many friends I make and keep. The emptiness inside is always there like a vacuum threatening to crumble me from within like a vortex of pain, ugliness, and self hate. I try to be positive for a time, and it seems to work. But when shit starts hitting the fan I begin to falter. The negative takes hold. Then I regret the negativity and self-hate slices itself a fresh wound.  I ooze and bleed raw emotion desperate to find someone or something who can swallow it. Like a sin eater. And people go running. As they should. I would do the same.


And I yell and scream and tell myself to stop, but the pieces just keep cracking more and more, the shell I've molded revealing all of its weaknesses. Pieces of clay improperly and incompletely jigsawed together. They held up for a time. Each piece balancing softly on another, giving and taking even seeming to flex and flow, taking life like a champ. Until the pull from within grows and one crucial sliver slips inside, and when the next piece pulls there is nothing there to lend its edge.


And so here I am. Sick for days. Horrified at how well my husband manages his duties as well as mine. The house is running more smoothly without me. Its not even a question, its a fact. The world has seen too much of the dark chasm inside, and so I am ashamed and withdraw from them as well. It may last, or my neediness may kick in and send me running right back to try to find a way to restore their affirmation. Their belief in me. At least someone can believe in me.  I'm not ready to run back at the moment. And so I have Googled dark questions, looked for dark answers. Contemplated the end. Contemplated uprooting my family to start over somewhere else where no one knows yet.  Contemplated staying with someone who breaks my heart over his cold stone one just so that my kids can have the hope of Disneylands and families and the shell of a real family in their future. But I'm pretty sure even they know this family doesn't operate like the rest of them. They know they are missing out on things while their father and mother hide from ourselves and each other. Like playing chicken to see who will succumb to what first.