sometimes your heart feels like glass, like glass, and you are not sure how it remains unbroken. you have been handled too harshly { you have handled yourself too harshly } for mere smudges, for mere shuddering cracks. him and him and you. you share your self - hatred with them, sometimes, but that means taking them into yourself and acknowledging that what they have done has harmed you IRREPARABLY and that is almost worse. mostly you swallow it. your heart feels like glass, like glass, and you do not think it is completely shattered but you are not sure that you know how to tell.
sometimes your heart feels like smoke, untouchable, on the days when you are distant and they call you quarrelsome, they call you TREATMENT RESISTANT, and you do not know how to tell them you feel as though everything is too far away to trust. you cannot feel it beating, cannot feel it pumping blood but they tell you it must be, it must be, and sometimes you cut yourself open just to be sure. and sure enough blood always spills plentifully from broken wrists and you are not sure if you are grateful for living or if you regret it. you heart feels like smoke and you cannot feel it beating and you almost wish it would stop.
sometimes your heart feels like tar, like sludge, thick. it spreads throughout your veins and makes you heavy, makes you tired, makes you count your cutlery like some sort of children’s book. your limbs weigh a ton and your lips weigh more and you do not know how you manage to force a smile. sometimes you cannot. you can feel it spilling out into your lungs, caking hard round your ribs. you find yourself waiting for the day when they will crack under the weight, for the day they will collapse in on you and you will cease to exist. your heart feels like tar and sometimes you vomit it up.
sometimes your heart feels like nothing at all, and this is the worst kind of suffering. sometimes you can be so cruel and so selfish and so hurtful and so GODDAMN COWARDLY that you are certain you must have no heart at all for surely one with kindness in their veins would not be able to — to — to. sometimes you are heartless, you are wicked, and the doctors blame it on your chemistry and you blame it on yourself. you find yourself alone with all these words, all these words in your head that mock, that demean, selfish, sinner, ugly, cruel, how could you, how could you? and they are so loud and so insistent that you believe them.
every time the others forgive you, the words grow louder.