Piecing It Together

Piecing It Together

I try and breathe

I take it one day at a time

Every second seems important

More important than the exhale

I hold it in

Because I can’t let go

I try and count

The moments as I lie awake

The intrusive minutes that bleed into the late evening

When the world changes all around, and yet it all feels still

I try and cope

I haven’t found the best solution

I try, and try again

Yet feel failure with each win

As if I know the peace won’t last

I can’t breathe

My cries overpower my lungs

I gasp with each tear as it chokes me

A smell lingers

A familiar stench of alcohol, cigarettes, and young masculine sweat

So bold, but disguised

I can’t talk about it

Can’t say it aloud

Can’t say how when I close my eyes, I still remember

Remember the music from my laptop, still playing

Remember coming in and out of a “dream”

Feeling more than I could see

I remember, and I’ve tried to forget

I can’t count my tears

They fall hard, staccato, and like tiny wet soldiers

They’re quickly discarded so as to not have any evidence of weakness

And just as fast as they’re wiped away, they return, unwanted

I cope by not coping

Afraid to say how terrified I am at times being approached by people I don’t know

I put on a facade of toughness

I am tough, and yet just a bit scared to let any guard down

I scream inside my head, grit my teeth, tremble, and wait for the moment when I can run

I’ll run as fast, hard, and far as I can

I’ll run from you

I’ll run from them

I’ll run from myself

I don’t know where you are

I don’t know why you did this

I don’t know why I wasn’t successful with letting it all go

Because I tried

I tried to go away

And guilt brought me back

Sometimes it gets painfully difficult to stay

I don’t trust the world

And I don’t know how to fully understand reasoning

I need a reason

I need to know how stupid and pathetic I must have looked for that night to even be thought of

I need to know when my clothes became option

I need to know why both

I need to know if I screamed, because it felt as though I should

I need to know if after you regretted what happened

I need to know whether or not you said penance

I silently cry and torture myself into believing I’m over exaggerating

That what happened wasn’t bad enough

Even my own mind wants to say, I don’t believe you

But I remember pieces

Even when I don’t want to, I feel as though I’m there

I just want to end this

End the memories

End the haze

End the tears

End the jolting behavior

More often than not, just end it

And I try everyday to not give in

I try and hold on for family, which makes me feel like a failure even more

Failing to make myself happy, by just focusing on others

I want to one day feel happy, without feeling a mask on top of that feeling

I’m trying

Contemplating (a break)

It’s hard to say it, 

Let alone scream it from the tops of your lungs —

I was assaulted!

Not even able to say the type of assault, 

You sit silently, 

Trying to catch the sight of someone who makes you out.  

Their eyes tell you they don’t believe you, 

Faster than the words coming out of their mouths. 

You clinch down harder on your tears, 

To keep them from showing just how you haven’t dealt, 

Just hardened the shell.  

Those same eyes glossing over without a blink - - wrenching fingers and pulled nails - - parts of hair in one hand - - and blood between teeth and lips. 

That’s how you deal. 

Until you just can’t. 

///////::——

Contemplating staying longer than I’d like utterly destroys me. 

I’m finding it more difficult to find ways other than excessively working out and neglecting food, to distract me from the inevitable. 

That one day I won’t be able to hold off on going through with my plan.  

That the date I’ve pushed back a few times I’ll push closer. 

And feel the breeze one last time as I choose me over them.  

The staying is destroying me, and I am trying to overcome this situation. 

What’s better: painfully living while waiting for the end? 

Or ending the pain just fast enough to feel as though you’ve lived?