the memories have been plaguing my mind and infiltrating my dreams at night. my sleep is cut short from the fast paced heart beats and the ringing in my ears and the dizzying spin in my head. I can’t think straight because I’m still running. running from everything that I thought I left behind, but can never really be left behind. my memories and past plague me and stalk me. They hunt me down during the best times of my life and wrack their claws through everything, bringing the illusion back down. I can’t scream. My voice is gone. It was taken long ago by people with names unspoken. I can hardly breathe. I can feel their grip on my throat as it gets tighter and tighter and less and less air can escape my lungs. I’m trapped in this ever living loop of horror. 

In the Dark.

It’s dark. I’m glad there isn’t enough lights on for you to see my face. I’m glad it’s cold in here, so you can mistake my trembling chin for chattering teeth. I’m glad you can’t feel the tears starting to run down my face. You ask if I’m okay, because I’m hesitant and pull away when you push close. I just kiss you and keep kissing you until I can hardly breathe. You start to ask again and I kiss you harder. Don’t speak. Especially not those words. I can handle the tremble of my chin and the few tears rolling down my cheek, but if you speak those words, the wall will be shattered. If you speak those words, those few tears will turn to sobs. I can not handle that. Please just don’t speak. Be gentle with me. I am not here, not fully, but my body is delicate tonight, my mind even more so. Please, just be gentle with me. Don’t break me more than I already am.

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I love you. can’t you see that? I hate you for it. I am so vulnerable because of you. You have the power to destroy me in a second and I don’t understand how I could just hand over that power to you like I was just passing the TV remote. You could crush me under the weight of the world. I don’t understand why you haven’t yet. But I’m glad you haven’t. I’m glad you put my heart in a glass box on the shelf in your heart and you cradle and caress it. I hope you don’t decide to break it one day. I hope an earth quake doesn’t hit you and shatter that glass box and my heart along with it. I hope you stay mine and take care of that already broken heart that’s got quite a few pieces missing already from all the times it’s been broken before.

Untouchable.

I don’t want to be touched. I don’t want to be seen. I want there to be nothing to touch and nothing to see when anyone looks at me. I want to wither away into nothing. I want to be untouchable. I need to be untouchable. I can’t stand this anymore. This vulnerability. It’s destroying me. 

“Destroy what destroys you.”

Or so the saying goes. 

I don’t want to eat. I can’t. It hurts too much. I’d rather go without. I don’t want to eat this weekend. I don’t know how I’ll get away without eating, or at least not eating much. But I have to do it anyway. I can’t stand this. I need it to go away. I need to starve this demon within me. 

I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. But I need to do this. I have to. I don’t have any other choice. I’m sorry.

The Fear of Being Heard.

I don’t like to be heard. I like to be completely silent. I don’t want anyone to hear me walking, my steps need to be as silent as possible. I don’t like to chew crunchy things because you can hear me chewing. I don’t like others to hear me breathing or swallowing, or anything.

I don’t want to make a noise. I want to fade into the background and not be heard or seen or noticed. I want to disappear in plain sight. 

If I can’t be seen or I can’t be heard, then nothing bad can happen. If I hold my breath long enough and wait for you to pass, hoping you won’t hear the thudding of my heart beating, then I will be safe. 

I wonder if my past really created this deep fear of people and making sounds. I don’t want people to hear me, to acknowledge my existence. If that happens, I don’t know what they will do, but I do know that humans are capable of horrendous things. I don’t care to experience those things, so I pretend I don’t exist and that I’m not there hoping that they will not notice me. 

I often wonder if this is something that I may one day grow out of, but it seems deeply ingrained into my being.