Irrelevent
Cruelty always surprises me. I'm not sure why; at this point you'd think I'd recognize it early. Or at least be ready when it hits. But I never am. I can understand anger, disappointment, that need for space. But never the capacity to hurt somebody who cares about you simply because you can.
I hate this feeling. This restlessness. Fluttering in my chest, knocking desperately against my ribs like the birds that used to get trapped in my mother's sunroom. Panicking until they broke their necks on the windows, even after we opened the doors. So blindly desperate they couldn't take the way out, even when it was right in front of them. I hate the way my hands shake and my mind races. I need something to distract me, but I can't focus. Everything in me wants to cry but I'm not sure I'll be able to stop. Mostly I hate that I ever gave somebody the power to do this to me. That I still haven't learned. That every time I let my guard down, I regret it. Every time. Never learn.
Some of the worst moments of my life have been born of this feeling. Of that desperate need to make it stop, to numb myself until it dies off on its own. And all of the ways I know to shut it off have the same end result. My neck is broken, and there was another way out all along. It seems that in the long run, the only way to chase off the panic and the pain is by inviting another form of it in. Whether I swallow numbness, or hide myself in another person who could one day make me feel this way all over again, it's essentially the same. The outside looks so pretty, but you can't trust the glass not to stand in your way and break you.
I've been listening to Matthew Ryan today. Something about his voice that suits it all so well. The way you can hear it, underneath, that wavering when the pain threatens to break through. That caught breath to keep it in. That hope that no one else can hear it, that the disguise is working.
I hate this feeling. This restlessness. Fluttering in my chest, knocking desperately against my ribs like the birds that used to get trapped in my mother's sunroom. Panicking until they broke their necks on the windows, even after we opened the doors. So blindly desperate they couldn't take the way out, even when it was right in front of them. I hate the way my hands shake and my mind races. I need something to distract me, but I can't focus. Everything in me wants to cry but I'm not sure I'll be able to stop. Mostly I hate that I ever gave somebody the power to do this to me. That I still haven't learned. That every time I let my guard down, I regret it. Every time. Never learn.
Some of the worst moments of my life have been born of this feeling. Of that desperate need to make it stop, to numb myself until it dies off on its own. And all of the ways I know to shut it off have the same end result. My neck is broken, and there was another way out all along. It seems that in the long run, the only way to chase off the panic and the pain is by inviting another form of it in. Whether I swallow numbness, or hide myself in another person who could one day make me feel this way all over again, it's essentially the same. The outside looks so pretty, but you can't trust the glass not to stand in your way and break you.
I've been listening to Matthew Ryan today. Something about his voice that suits it all so well. The way you can hear it, underneath, that wavering when the pain threatens to break through. That caught breath to keep it in. That hope that no one else can hear it, that the disguise is working.