Sometimes, you just break. Not in front of people. Most of us break behind the scenes. Those of us who appear broken to others have often broken so many times behind the scenes that the collateral damage resonates across all social interaction. Breaking is a horrible, horrible thing.
I wish I could tell everyone reading this that it's going to be okay; that you'll eventually find a way to put yourself back together. I can't right now, but I hope that, one day soon, I'll be able to write that article.
Right now, I'm not sure I'll ever be able to put myself back together. I feel... alone. But maybe Kathy Bates was right in P.S., I Love You. "If we're all alone, we're all together in that, too."
So this one's for you: all my broken people, who feel utterly alone. I'm just like you. We're together in that aloneness. Thanks for being here with me.
I wrote this poem shortly after something very traumatic occurred in my life; something that I was not allowed to have an authentic reaction to because I was plunged into a situation where watchful eyes were taking in my every move and noting the way I responded. I've never felt more alone than in the months that have followed this occurrence, where I have not been granted the privilege of grief in full, and therefore have been stagnant in this pain.
Don't let anyone see you breaking; and breathe, even if it hurts.
“She doesn’t break,” they all whisper
As they stare at her with wide eyes
“She isn’t like the rest of us,”
“She doesn’t scream, doesn’t cry”
"Until one day, she does,"
She wants to reply
And today is the day she just might
She doesn’t break in the way
that most people find
She doesn’t scream--
She doesn’t cry
In front of open arms
Or wandering eyes
When she does break
she shatters across the sky
She drives to a place
where she can be alone
And that is where she screams
That is where she cries
If there is collateral beauty
It’s very hard to find
She finds she grows a little more lost
With every breath that passes by
Peace is suddenly so hard
For her to discover
Even despite the guards on her heart
That she continues to uncover
She has to make friends
With the silence again
But she feels as if it betrayed her
Because in that sacred silence
Was where she met him
And while in her arms, he stabbed her
And in the silence
There is no longer solace
There is no rest for her weary soul
But instead in entraps her
The stillness catches her
And it eats at the joy that it stole
At night she stares at a wall
As if into a moonlit forest
But it’s filled with nothing but bones
There is only emptiness
Within her to find
Maybe one day she’ll refill it
Shattered, in shambles
Broken, but numb
Desperately still in love
Her heart cannot seem to rebuke it
She finds distances to stare into
Unbelievably low strung
She just wishes she could breathe
Without it hurting her lungs