Comma, Off

I’ve spent most of my life falling apart. Breaking like glass. Crumbling to ash. I’ve fought, and fought, and fought. I talk to myself because I can’t talk to you. If I did I’d know what you’d say. The same things you say when I cry in front of you, when I admit doubt or weakness, pain or angst. Make fun of me, do garish mocks of my face, insult me because I deserve it, and tell me I don’t deserve it. I’m a liar, a failure, a thief, and a con. I’ve spent my life breaking and it’s gone on and on for longer than I breathe.

For every tear, scream, insult, and ounce of pain, I’ve caused and felt I’ve tried to say goodbye. With the words on my lips and tears in my eyes, I’ve tried to say goodbye. With ink puddles and circles on blank pages, I’ve tried to say goodbye. I almost did once for I am a failure, a liar, a crier, a writer, and a thief. The biggest thing I ever stole was your life. I can’t give it back by letting go, by giving up, by asking for help, so I waited. I waited. I screamed. I cried. I waited. Then it came like blossoms in the wind, a new beginning at the tip of my fingers.

With fingers of bone sharpened to daggers, I reached out and tore the blossom to pieces. I break what I love and cry out to the ashes that it wasn’t my fault. Deep within my eyes of green, I see through red noses and wet lashes that my hands were only made to break the ones I touch. I am tired, I am a thief, I am a failure, I am a liar, but most of all I am con. I am a con because despite my awareness of the darkness in the world I believe most people are good, even if I don’t say it. I believe that when a friend offers a shoulder or a listening ear, they mean it even if I know firsthand that most don’t.

I lie through smiles and words to say I’m okay. Fine. Good. Great. Words of poison from a liar’s lips. From my hands come the words that strangle me, burn me, and tie me to myself. A reflection of a partial truth will only give you a distorted sense of who is in that mirror. A liar with a fear of being the only reason that you fall. A fear that is less of a shadow crawling through the abscess of my mind and more of a fear that is me. I am my fear and it isn’t an if, it’s a now. You already said it yourself, that I am the reason that you aren’t where you could have been. So I lie. I’m fine. Maybe I was. Maybe getting that message pulled me from the daggers of my mind far longer than I intended to. Made me forget that I was holding a blossom ready to crumble at my mistakes.

I’m fine. I’m good. I’m less than I ever was before I even existed because I am degrading and eroding to dust and poison that melts and sinks into the souls of the ones I love. So I lie. To prevent them from pouring any energy down an open drain. Yet, I reach out, further proof of the nature of one who isn’t themselves in the way they wish they could be. Because I am a petty, dramatic, thief, liar, observer, con, failure, and I am tired of fighting the weight of who I am.