Relief’s Familiar Call

I don’t really know how to put where I’m at into words, but I’m going to try.

I’m in this painful fog, a place where I don’t know who I am, where it feels like I’m watching someone else inside of me scream and cry. And I mean that literally. I’m not crying. I’m not screaming.

It’s like the part of me that would is trapped behind my skeleton and I’m just watching them struggle.

This is the space where my old coping skills start calling to me.

The ones that used to quiet everything.

The ones I know aren’t good for me.

The ones that right now feel like the only things that could make this loneliness let up.

It’s hard because I’m on this strange autopilot where all the things that could hurt me feel relieving.

Like they’re the only familiar doorways out of this fog.

So I’m stuck fighting myself until I can feel my feet on the ground again.

That poem brought me back for a little while, but here I am again… floating.

And honestly, I hate that so much of my writing ends up sounding cynical.

It’s not the only part of me, but it’s the only part that knows how to speak when I’m like this.

I’m supposed to meet up with some people tonight for dinner.

Gonna have a few beers. Try to relax.

Maybe being around others will help me center again, or at least give me a little tether back to myself.

There’s not really a point to this post.

I’m just in pain.

And I’m trying to claw my way out.

The truth is, when I talk about my struggles, there’s a lot of shame in it.

Shame that I should be past all this by now.

Shame that I don’t always have it together.

Shame that wanting relief is sometimes enough to make me crack a little.

I guess I’m still figuring out how to let myself be human.

How to let myself be someone who hurts, and someone who’s still trying.

And sometimes I wonder…

where would I be if love had found me before all of this happened to me?

If softness had met me earlier?

If safety had come first?

I don’t know.

But it’s a question that sits with me tonight.

What about me is so hard to love? To see? To want around?