Broken Streams

I stepped in a stream and I thought of you.
I had to pause and take a minute before I could go on because the feeling was so strong.
Because I am a stream, fast and constantly in motion, always changing, always new.
And you are the foot that stops my progress.
The shoe I have to split myself apart to accommodate and work around.
You don't seem to notice when you've stepped on my movement; the way I don't notice the stream until my foot is right in the middle, forcing the water to flow around me and go out of it's way.

I stepped in a stream and I thought of you.
Of how I was fine, how I let the current of time flow and take me somewhere new; how I let it make me someone new.
And then I thought of how you stepped in like it was nothing, like I was a stagnant pond just waiting for your direction.

I stepped in a stream and I thought of how over the last seven days it seems like an army has crossed my current, always stepping right in the middle like my life means nothing if their shoe isn't in the middle of it to get wet.

I stepped in a stream and I congratulated the water on it's continued motion, even when I was in the middle where I didn't belong, even when I made it harder for the water to run.  And when I was on the other side, I thought of all the people who have appeared in the middle of my progress, where they don't belong, where they made it hard for me to move, and I congratulated myself on my continued motion.  I congratulated myself on my healing, despite the way they keep stepping on me and tearing my scars open again.

I stepped in a stream and I thought how unfair it is for the world to keep trying to stop the water until I remembered that water is strong enough to carve a mountain in half and that after all this time, I myself am mostly water too.

Holding My Breath

Everyone has a different response to fear and mine is silly.

It's not really a solution, it's just an instinct that I don't know how to change.

I hold my breath.

I hold my breath so my brain can focus on the lack of oxygen and not on the panic or the fear or the hope.

I hold my breath so I can focus on the black spots that dance in the corners of my vision; so I don't have to focus on the brown eyes bright like amber lit through with sunlight in front of me.

I hold my breath so I don't have to think of anything other than the next breath I might breathe in; so I don't have to think about his voice or the things he's said or the way he's expecting me to answer him.

I hold my breath but I can only hold it for so long.

And when I finally let go, the world comes crashing in and my lungs burn from more than just the fresh air.  

They burn with fears and thoughts and words I'll never be brave enough to say.  

With reasons why we can't and why it's too late and why I'm not right for him.

And since I don't have the words or the timing or the courage, I just take a deep breath again and hold it until I can't anymore.

Sorry Doesn't Fix Everything

Apologies are supposed to heal things.
They're meant to mend the tears we rip into one another with our own savage humanity because our words have teeth and our actions have talons.
They're supposed to be like a salve on the burns we inflict when we let anger burn too bright and burst out of us.
They're supposed to stitch us back together like lacerated skin when we lash out sharp and fast and hard.
They're supposed to be like treaties signed on neutral ground to end the battle.
But this one feels like stones tied to my feet right before I'm pushed into the water.
This one feels like a punch to the gut when I had my eyes closed, praying to be done.
This one feels like exhaustion; heavy and cumbersome and oppressive.
This one feels nothing like healing or freedom or peace.
It feels like a new, jagged wound that I don't know how to fix.
It feels like I might bleed out in agony because you said sorry like a dagger slipped between my ribs right to my heart and I thought we were done fighting.

Dangerous Armor

My fears rattle in my chest like broken breaths every day, but at least they feel familiar.
Fear and doubt and self-criticism are as natural to me as breathing and blinking and movement.
I never realized how heavy they laid upon me-the pieces of armor that have become who I am thrust upon me by what I have lived through.

The hope that buzzes beneath my skin now is a stranger to me.
It feel foreign and dangerous, like a toxin injected right into my veins.
The high is almost nice, but I've ridden the cycle so many times that I know a crash is coming.
Instead of closing my eyes and riding the high, I keep my eyes down watching the ground fly closer, anticipating disaster.

I want the hope-I swear I do-but it feels so fragile.
So breakable in these shaky, clumsy hands.
And it's never just my own hands that I have to contend with, there are always others.
Hands that don't know how to be gentle, and hands that don't know how to keep their distance, and hands that poke and prod and never support.
There are so many hands on the hope that wavers before me that I don't know if I'll ever be able to hold it on my own and I don't know if I want to.

Because I'm a coward.
Because I'm so tired of watching it break.
Isn't it better to have never touched it at all then to watch it fall from the ocean of hands that hold it and forever wonder whose fault it was that it broke?
Because the voice in my head likes to point fingers during the day but when it's just me and her she changes her tune and blames the only one left...
Me.

I don't want sympathy or apologies when I say what's next, I just want to say it because it feels true.
I let the fear and doubt and self-criticism settle like an old, unshakable cough in my lungs.
I let distrust wrap itself around me like a warm cloak.
I let the past make itself into a shield and I shoulder it almost gladly.
Because it's easier.
Because I know if I'm always on alert no one can sneak in and hurt me.
Because the weight of that armor, no matter how dangerous, has become my new normal and I don't know if I could live without it.