If you have a scar, which is a constant reminder – for better and worse – that that was something you lived through; then obviously you will never be the same. Whether the scar is literal, memories carved in flesh, or figurative, the gaping wounds of the soul.
I am tired of having the offender come upon me at a later date, only to find me fully healed. Perhaps not in the condition they left me in; no longer broken and bleeding and utterly unusable – or even recognizable. Not the person I was before – not that girl whole and safe again. New. New and tattered and worn weary, but here. Still strong and breathing and capable of my own thoughts.
I am tired of having them flay open the scars to prove they are there. I know they are there, and I am well aware of who the offenders are. I remember everything, right down to the flavor in my mouth. I remember the way you smelled and your tone of voice. I remember it with a vicious clarity that if I do more than pass over it, I realize that while the scar is there the healing has not finished. And though time will whittle that away, time never Never NEVER EVER, takes that pain away. It is the ghost you sleep with every night. Your shadow in the sun.
I remember how you abandoned me! I remember how you hated and ignored and pushed me away. I remember you not being there and getting no reason why. I remember breaking. I remember being alone when you said you would be there. I remember the way the lie tasted falling from those lips.
I remember hell.
I’ve been there more times than you can count.
I’ve been there more times than you can count.
I remember my eagerness to believe you. To trust you. So yes, if you will look just right here you will see that I have not forgotten you. Not forgotten the pain you caused for the slight, no matter how small. See, it’s here. Just so. This here is the impact you have made. So take it and leave me be.
And while I wish you would, I know you won’t.
You will peel back those silvery pink layers of flesh. Just to prove you can. And then you will dig out all those tenuous webs I strived so hard to make. Threads to forget you. Threads to remember who I am. Threads to reattach and reconnect myself.
And once it is clear that you have rent everything once repaired, you will destroy more. You will push through everything and beyond until it is so clear that the impact has left me horribly mangled I will never ever be even a remote glimpse of who I once was – no matter how much I loved myself or yours.
I am tired of choking on the blood. I am tired of not drowning. I want no more to gasp and clutch to a life where this is the next baited answer. And I am not asking for a life free from pain, merely a life free from the cheap shot.
I am tired of making the effort on my own. Tired of stitching up my own wounds. Tired of crying tears that only make the agony overwhelmingly inescapable. Tired of fighting to breathe.
I am tired of fighting battles I know I’ve lost.
So take your pounds of flesh, your gallons of blood. Take your solace in the victory you have won. Champion yourself and make merry with your comrades. Flash your metal armor and flaunt your mounts and be festive for you have murdered the dragon. You have slain the chimera. You have decimated the creature what mortal men fear.
But do not come back when you realize you weren’t as forthright in your efforts.
Some deaths are a long time coming.
