[frail-hands-worked-to-the-bone]

I've got everything I need, but the courage.

[frail-hands-worked-to-the-bone]

Resisting the visceral urge to off myself

[frail-hands-worked-to-the-bone]

Take Me Back

I find myself bracing myself against the bad because it feels like the only way I can make it. It's hard to wrap my head around the fact that someone I love so much could be the source of so much pain. I forced myself to brush my teeth this morning and just started crying. Thinking to myself that you might be brushing your teeth at the same time, thinking the same thoughts I'm thinking. Thinking about how this was never supposed to be a part of our story. I think of all the laughter we shared. The nights we spent in bed just talking and laughing until we couldn't keep our eyes open any longer.

I think about all the late nights back in the early days where falling asleep without being on the phone with you felt unbearable. I think of how we clawed our way to each other in those early days. I still have that fierce determination, but often times I feel like I'm the only one with it. I think about the way I cried the entire time I made my proposal video. It felt like an impossible ask for me to verbalize how much I love you with my own voice and to even ask "Will you marry me?" I think of how beautiful you looked when I saw you walking down the aisle to me. I remember the way my body felt. I remember feeling like I couldn't catch a big enough breath. The overwhelming sensation of butterflies in my body, the excitement, the nervousness about the pressure of being able to live up to be the man that you deserve.

I remember thanking my lucky stars that you were mine. I could never wrap my head around how lucky I was to have you. I remember riding around with your ring in the trunk of that crappy Pontiac g6. I remember going to pick it out. I couldnt afford a really expensive ring and that $600 engagement/wedding band combo felt like a disservice to a woman of your caliber. You deserved an engagement ring with the moon in place of the stone. You deserved a wedding band with the sun in place of the stone.

I felt that I could never possibly live up to be enough for you.

Fast forward 9 years, and it feels like my fears have been confirmed. I sleep alone on a couch, desperately missing your embrace. I crumble alone in the city we met in. Surrounded by the ghost of you. Places we used to go to. Places we went on dates to. Places we used to live. Streets we used to travel down before life got in the way. When we had nothing on our mind but our hopes and dreams of the future we would one day build together. Red lights we sat at while we discussed children.

There are no words that can describe the emptiness I feel. The injustice I feel I've suffered. My pain is always the loudest voice in the room. Everywhere I look I'm reminded of you. I sometimes hear voices that sound similar to you and I am reminded of what used to be. Sometimes its hard for me to even remember what you sound like. What you smell like. If you asked me 9 months ago, I couldn't ever imagine that I'd forget those things about you. The way you'd awkwardly smile when I would give you that look from across the room.

The signs of the end were all right in front of me. But I couldn't keep my head above water enough to see them. I miss you so much. I miss your smell. Your smile. Your beautiful blue eyes. Your thick wavy brown hair that would always be in my way when I'd try to bury my face into your neck so I could feel safe enough and calm the inner noise so I could sleep. I miss the way you'd melt into my arms. How strong I felt to even have them around you. I miss the way you would panic at the first glimpse of a roach. I miss having to clear the garage so you could swap the clothes from the washer to the dryer. I miss standing guard to protect your feet from the roach invaders. I miss sitting on the porch of our family home. Making plans for our future.

For when things would finally get better. Where we could both be happy. Before the future was robbed from me. While we planned our future and the better days we had ahead, you were secretly planting the charges that would blow our marriage up in a way that even the largest 4th of July crowd would marvel at. The explosion put Disney fireworks to shame.

I feel like I'm imploding every single day. Just knowing that the "man" who helped you destroy the very thing I believed to be absolutely sacred, that he has more access to you than me is a knife in the heart. That is a wound that often times feels impossible for me to survive. You used to be the breath that filled my lungs. Now you're the breath that I can't seem to catch, no matter how many nights I lay awake stricken by the ghost of you. No matter how many times I jolt awake at night because I thought I heard your text tone. I feel like a ticking time bomb most days. The love doesn't feel safe to hold so tightly to my heart, because it wasn't exclusively mine. The hurt though, that is and always will be exclusively mine.

"I had all and then most of you

Some and now none of you

Take me back to the night we met

I don't know what I'm supposed to do

Haunted by the ghost of you

Oh, take me back to the night we met"

The Night We Met - Lord Huron

Just when I think I can't survive the crippling pain, the sun rises. The birds start chirping and I'm forced to face the reality of it all. Life goes on either way. What comes after darkness is the mourning.

[frail-hands-worked-to-the-bone]

Really sick and tired of fucking everythinggg

[frail-hands-worked-to-the-bone]

I deserve a 21 gun saluteeeee

For giving my life for you

For suffering fatal wounds on your orders.

Waiting for my 21 gun salute

For giving my heart to you

For following through and through

Like a soliderrrrrr

[frail-hands-worked-to-the-bone]

Tell me young man would you say

When the end was a moment away

You swallowed the pain without any regret

And settled your debt

If nothing is permanent

Was your life worth dying for?

[frail-hands-worked-to-the-bone]

Now fill me in, were you into him or just upset?

[broughttothewater]

[spookshollow]

[mardatann]

[frail-hands-worked-to-the-bone]

Morning

I wake up a little too early to be late.

I wake up a little too late to be early.

I think to myself today will be a good day surely.

I roll over, take a hit of my vape

Just enough to put my body in a calmer state.

I don't know the last time I woke up truly feeling rested.

It had to have been before all of the years of being tested.

I slip into my work clothes.

Clothes that have seen better days

Often times I feel like a rat.

Running through an endless maze.

Every working day, that nagging feeling grows.

I've got just enough time to make it to work now.

Better go get in the car I suppose.

What should I listen to today while I drive?

Blast beats and growls make me feel alive.

I put down my visor to block the sun from my eyes.

As I go to war in my head, battling my brain's lies.

"You'll never be good enough."

I call that demon's bluff.

"Your kids deserve more."

Desperately I force that thought back through the door.

"No wonder your marriage didn't last"

Why the fuck am I still stuck in the past?

"Hopefully you keep the bottle down"

I will never again choose to drown.

"Everyone you care about will give up on you"

I'm pretty sure that isn't true.

"You are not a real man"

Just another form of deceit from where I stand.

"You should just go ahead and end it all."

My kids are the main reason I try to stand tall.

From the outside, everything looks fine.

Unfortunately, that's what's within most of the time.

I finally arrive at work.

Another 8 for 8.

Another lie told to my coworkers when I say "I'm great!"

The music doesn't stop.

I often feel that I NEED it.

The music always feels true.

Don't keep on telling me that I'm gonna pull through

When you don't know low like I do.

[frail-hands-worked-to-the-bone]

Oh, and I

I used to know myself

Oh, and you

You used to know me well

Oh, and I

Wish that I could leave myself alone

Oh, and you

You wish that you could make me whole

[frail-hands-worked-to-the-bone]

I've got eyelids heavy enough to break diamonds

You pray for sound and I pray for silence

Damn right, faithless, I can't deny

You'll find me with half a mind to get violent

You know it isn't over 'til I say it's over

No more little angels sitting on my shoulders

So give me the edge of a blade and a time and a place

And I'll leave them cold and pushing up boulders

[frail-hands-worked-to-the-bone]

Nearly two weeks since my entire world was turned upside down. I've never felt more confused in my life. In the days since you've made me feel strong. Valued. Worthy. The tendrils of mental illness steadily grow and cement themselves into my brain. Constant thoughts of why? What did I do wrong? Am I capable of being loved the way you once loved me? When I'm with you, brief glimmers of clarity appear just for my mind to be wrenched back into the darkness when I think of the totality of the circumstances. Those feelings of contempt, apathy, disdain. They feel inescapable. You tell me you wish you could take it all back. But unfortunately we aren't time travelers. I so desperately want to be made whole again. I feel you're using your body and my love for you against me. I feel trapped. A lifetime of validation at your hands turned to rubble in an instant. My entire outlook on love feels shattered. I don't know if I ever could love again. My trust in women is irreparably shattered. I love you more than myself, and at the same time, I hate you more than anything. I'm terrified of this darkness swallowing me whole. I've never been more scared in my life. But at the same time.... I'm ready to embrace it.

[africansouljah]

Scarface (1983)

[frail-hands-worked-to-the-bone]

without you, I'll be miserable at best

AML <3 forever and always

[sodomymcscurvylegs]

When someone thinks they beat you at an argument and you line up all of your receipts to decimate them: