Tainted heart.

May 23rd 2014

It wasn't that I played the role of the betrayer that concerned me; it was that I was numb. I had felt no pain, I felt nothing. How is it that I can take such a beautifully crafted love and destroy it in the blink of an eye. I reflect on the times where my life felt disastrous to no repair; why do I miss that so much? All he wanted was one quick taste of me, and nothing else. I gave it to him, and now I will suffer these consequences for the rest of my life.

I knew there was trouble on the path I took, and I stumbled there incoherently anyway. I've never known how to stay. I wasn't taught how to love or give. I just feed this bottomless pit of emotion with whatever body will occupy me for the time being. I look for a vice to hold me for awhile, before I run as far away as I can. While I run, I break every heart I touch on the way.

I promised I would never commit the same crime that I've been all too familiar with; but my addiction to leave captured the best of me once again. If only the people in my life that see my "goodness" knew my dark and tainted heart. There is no logic to the decisions I make; just a train of impulses that never seem to end. There is nothing steady about my path. I need constant change, I need to keep finding more. Walking in a straight line has never been something I'm capable of.

I don't know what to blame my lack of care on. There's only so much you can pin on bad parenting and a sick culture. My mom's junkie boyfriends didn't make me this way. Her addiction didn't make me this way. My cheating first lover didn't do this. My deceased and un-present father didn't either. I did this. I made this. I chose this. I will pay for this.

Sometimes I think the only emotion I can truly feel is pain. Why has happiness grown so numb. I can't access that feeling in my heart that I once could. Is it possible that after so much pain you just stop feeling? I'm tired of hurting people, I don't know how I got this way. I don't know what has taken over. There is a poisonous presence inside of me, and I don't think that's something that can be taken away.

People like me are different. We weren't meant to this kind of conformed system. I am not meant to be someone's wife. I am not fit to take care of anyone else. I live on borrowed happiness and cigarette smoke. I was made to create chaos. I was made to feel and make others feel. I can't simply sit and stay still. I have to go. Always. I have to leave. Always.

It just goes to show that no matter how corrupt you turn out to be, someone will love you, but that someone just isn't me.

My lost shoes.

I remember that it hurt; looking at his defeated face hurt. The heart of another human being is far too fragile to played. At that moment, I could not look up into those dark brown eyes without feeling my heart physically sink to my stomach. There were words filling my brain, yet I heard nothing. I had never heard silence screaming so loudly. He was the best lesson I had ever had. He was the person who taught me how to love myself.

I still can’t swallow quite swallow the guilt and the shame that took me over. The little girl that had once sang into the garden hose each morning, had dissipated. I Intentionally set a loving relationship into flames, and watched it burn. I was so desperate for love and security that that I was willing to sell my soul; just for a teaspoon of what love could bring me. That is where I fell. I sold who I really was to become some sort of monster. I needed fire, I needed passion, I needed arguments, and I found myself comforted by pain. I needed anything that would consume me entirely. I needed drugs, alcohol, church; anything that would make me disappear. The reality was it was me was who I really hated, not him.

No matter how full of life any substance made me feel, I was always searching for more. The day I first met him followed an eventful weekend of Raspberry Smirnoff and American Spirits. I looked up to see a tall, dark, brown eyed boy staring at me in the hallway of the English department. He was carrying a pair of old gray battered Converse, that belonged to me. I seldom recall leaving the party without my sneakers, as police invaded the premises. I ran down what appeared to be a mountain, barefoot and unbalanced. On that following Monday, he stood in front of me . My found boy, with my lost shoes.

He ignited a fire within in me that would not die. I fell in love with each element of him, the good, the new, and the different. I fell in love with all of it, even the parts he thought to be messy. He challenged me, loved me, hurt me and healed me. We fought perpetually, screaming harmful slurs until morning. Eventually we realized the only fight we cared about, was the fight for our love. We invested every fiber of emotion into one another. We couldn’t stop the annihilation we caused, that stung deeply. There was no excuse for the intentional hurt I placed in his life, in our lives. I’m not sure I can ever inhale the way he walked away from me; his head hanging like a weeping willow.
What I had yet figured out was that love is equivalent to sacrifice. I couldn’t be upset with someone because they did not act and react the way that I would. That’s what made our relationships work.We all bring different elements to the table that blend so beautifully, and instead of believing that I pushed those realities as far away from me as I could. As I watched him walk away on that snowy January morning, I stumbled through snow piles misunderstood and full or pride. I could not access any humble part of me. Snowflakes trickled down my face as I walked to the bus. My heart grew as cold as the temperature.

In that particular moment of snowy heartbreak and tears, I had some realizations about the woman that was staring back at the reflection of the bus window. It was not my relationship nor my situation that needed to be changed. It was my attitude, and my unwillingness. I could

not face the demons in my own heart so I went projecting them onto him, expecting him to carry such a heavy and broken load. It felt like the deepest parts of me had been penetrated by a darkness. I just couldn’t compete with. I sat wondering if he would ever come back or if I had completely burned every ounce of love we once had to the ground.

As the realizations soaked into me, I gave up on the fantasy of him ever coming back. why would he? I began to understand that it was okay to not be okay. I also realized that the only people that hurt and destroy others, are those that are drowning in hurt themselves. I needed to change, I needed to grow, and I needed to heal, alone. How could I possibly pour love unto someone if I was empty of it myself? I had let the world drown me of any happiness, and I refused to sink down any further. I needed to get up, I needed to find freedom from the sorrows that kept me standing in one cycle for so long, the cycle or rage, and brokenness.

I moved to a new city, I explored new people and new places. I found my favorite Chai Tea Latte, and a job that paid me more than I really needed. I explored the parts that I never know lived within me. I wrote journal entries every single day, I went to theatres and libraries. I read 23 books that summer. I started hiking and traveling anywhere that had captivated me, previously. I had finally started feeling a freedom, that I’d never known. I obtained a love for others, and a love for myself. I learned that there will always be parts of me that are messy and unattainable; but I liked that. I liked the challenge, I liked the growth, and I like the rawness.

As I reflect on the relationship that once consumed me, I love it. It was passionate, fiery and emotional. It beat us both down so brutally that we had no choice but find a nurturing love after all of our exhaustion. As I looked through facebook, I saw his pictures, his happiness, and his adventurous spirit. I measured my personal growth, and the patience and compassion I had

acquired. I witnessed the beauty of young love and the reality of maturity. I understood the human heart and the important of empathy. My capacity and ability to accept others’ and their emotions grew immensely. I had a fresh eye, and love for others. That was a freedom I had always needed. I would always be messy, destructive and poisonous. He taught me that those parts of me were understood, and that they were loved. He taught me that I was worthy.