Innocuous comment. Made by someone without the straps attached to my shoulders. The baggage I hold there.
All it took to shatter me. Send me into a pit of grief I still swim inside. My fingers are cold. My chest numb.
I miss her, the woman I was last year. She was fearless. She was incredible.
The argument could be made that I am still those things, but it is certainly underneath a pile of rubble. A building collapse, and no one can hear the shouting.
I feel like I’m running out of air. Like there’s wool surrounding my head. Cotton sheets on clotheslines making a maze I started laughing my way through, but now there’s no end in sight.
The sun is shining, and it is the cold sun of winter. Where the warmth doesn’t reach past the surface of your skin and you are left wanting.
I am wanting. I am filled with wanting.
I want it gone.
I don’t want to want.
It has taken an insurmountable effort, you know, to keep my sadness internal. To make sure no one knows the sun hasn’t shone for me most of this year. Spots of gold on the timeline where it cracked the barricade, softened the blow.
My sadness has always felt like weakness. Grief an unforgiveable sin.
I sin tonight without being capable of withstanding temptation.
The sadness will pass, as sadness does. But for tonight–
Just for tonight.
I think I’ll indulge a while longer.
salisbury.fake 