This is what it feels like when it’s over and you have to feel it, every bit of it.
It feels like every corpuscle of blood is drained out of your body and you can’t move
or like your body is filled with shattered glass which stabs at your insides
and you can’t numb it, not with the usual suspects. Because you’re clean now, and you won’t throw that away this time.
This is what it feels like when you dream of them holding you
When in reality you never got to feel their arms around you, not once
and you feel so safe engulfed in their arms you weep bitterly when you wake
This is what it feels like when you can only remember that last phone call
And how you strained to say everything that needed to be said. And how impossible that was
The journey between you so complicated that by the time you get to this place
the twisted helix of your relationship snakes around and around until you end up
exactly where you were before
there is only so much that can be said in words
This is what it feels like to finally know you’re crazy.
Because when your neighbor found you in the street wild haired and barefoot
in pajamas and a tee shirt in 45 degree weather
she put you in her car and drove you home while you babbled that you just needed some air
But couldn’t tell her what day of the week it was.
She said you were in shock. which is the polite way of saying, “you are crazy.”
This is what it feels like when you try to remember the good times
And there were far less of them. Mostly you remember the bad
You struggle to remember that yes, there WAS love.
And you battle the ugly memories out of your brain because you want peaceful closure
Not anger. Not now. Not anymore
This is what it feels like when you try to etch out who you are
From what they made you into
You will not be that person. You are evolving into something much higher
You are only the product of what they did to you in that
it gave you a road map of what you will not be
This is what it feels like to not be a mother to your son
Ignoring his pain because you’re lost in your own
You hear him sobbing and can’t even go to him because you’re frozen in time
And you fail him.
Again.
This is what it feels like to lay in bed and stare at the ceiling
And tell yourself, THIS is where you will live now.
It’s really just a room in your brain but you have no reason to leave
Keep the shades drawn so the sun can’t get in and remind you that everyone else is still alive
After the sun goes down, pretend to sleep with the television left on all night long
Volume turned off
And replay your own series
of every time they hurt you or made you feel special. Sometimes simultaneously.
This is what it feels like when you can’t eat
Food tastes like ashes
So you drink tea
And wish it were Jack Daniels. At 8 am in the morning.
This is what it feels like when you’re cooking dinner for your kid
And planning his birthday party
That now he won’t get to have
And blasting the Black Keys
And dancing with him around the kitchen
And the phone rings
And your brother says
“mom just died.”
Out of nowhere. She wasn’t even sick.
This is what it feels like
It feels like
It feels.
It feels.
It feels.
I love you all for reading. But comments are closed
I can’t listen today. Another time, okay?
