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.