I’m numb.
The worst kind of numb.
Numb to the pain that I should be feeling, numb to the ache of healing. My heart is hardening to the idea that I’m nothing special; I can be replaced in just one beat. I’m trying all that I can to keep from being cold, but how can I allow myself to be vulnerable again when I’ve been fed lie after lie and the poison that rolls off your tongue is just now taking effect? I was hit at my highest, now I’m just a sinking stone. Bottom will come soon, right? I’m leagues under the sea, my eyes have been opened to the creatures of the deep. Shape shifters that hide in the shadows only allowing certain angles of themselves to be seen.
I’m scared. Terrified of this dive, this leap of faith that feels more like suicide. “I’m not coming back,” my brain whispers, “I will never be the same.” I hope wings work underwater. Maybe, like Icarus, I flew too close to the sun. I allowed myself to feel self love while falling into a deeper love that went through more than my skin. Now, I’m imploding. A nuclear meltdown that looks completely harmless from the exterior, but inside the radiation is killing me.
And I’m tired. Exhaustion seeping through my bones making my limbs heavier than racks of bricks. My shoulders ache from the thoughts that weigh down my head. Emotionally, I’m tiny. Mentally, I’m minuscule. Bacteria on a microscope slide. But I’ve been put up on a shelf, unwanted, unneeded, unnecessary until the next hypothesis needs proven. Waiting for a plague to somehow prove my worth.
Compensating is an interesting word. Putting extra weight on myself to make sure I live up to your expectations. Overinflated is another. Your ego described in one word. How dare you make me feel unworthy? Where do you get the nerve? I have a million more questions, but they don’t matter because even with my honesty, your lies come so naturally that you don’t even remember when you tell them. So the thoughts keep spinning. The same questions plague my mind for days at a time and every now and then they are shaken out of my head, but they always return. I guess this is what I’ve been waiting on. That plague, but no one has pulled me out of my slide case to examine a possible cure. Not a single hypothesis to prove, just the one that has been proven by you; I’m boring and I bore you enough that I don’t even qualify for another once-over to make sure that it’s true.
