Destructive

Some days my heart aches in ways that are difficult to describe...difficult to even admit. I stare at the pic of her and I feel so many conflicting emotions that it becomes overwhelming.  Love, unquestionable love and desire. Hope, for happiness and comfort.

But also a deep and ever-present darkness...anxiety, worry, despair.

I have stood here before. Not exactly here, it was very different. I was...naive, pure, innocent. He was...he was...deceptive. As more time passes the memory fades, both in importance and clarity. I don't love him anymore. I wasn't sure that would be possible back then. I was sure that kind of love was...inescapable. That the poison would linger, that his thorn vines would continue to strangle me and I would never be free. Yet here I stand, "free". And yet I am caged, not by him or even his memory. I now realize that the real prison was made by me.

He changed me. What he did to me is cut so deeply, so suddenly that I cannot pretend to be untouched. He abandoned me. He made me question my self-worth. He showed me that people lie, and people manipulate, and that all people do not have good intent.  He tore apart everything I believed in and everything that I thought I knew was true.  And the hardest part is not what he did, but that I let him.

A lot changed after this. Everything I believed in, everything I thought I wanted...it wasn't true anymore.  And a few years went on, and as much as I could I healed. I have somehow overcome the trauma. I dusted myself off, I stood on my own and I kept going. And a big part of me believed that I had truly healed, that I was okay.

I see now that I am not.  I see the darkness within this sparkling symbol of love, of commitment, of promise. And that crack in my heart pangs.  It whispers, it worries.

I'm not good enough.

I don't deserve this.

I can't be loved.

I'll ruin it.

You'll give up on me.

I'll lose you.

...I'll never be what you needs.

And sometimes I feel like my soul is screaming at her...warning her. Telling her that she has made an impossible promise.  Because she can't love me. Not like that, not forever. Because a long time ago someone broke forever for me. He shattered it, and he still has those pieces.

Is it wrong to want closure? I have moved past love, and hate, and even regret. I am exactly where I want to be, but I am terrified.

When did I stop believing in forever?

When did I begin to question whether I could ever be loved, protected, respected?

When did I give up on that small bricked home, bringing life into the world and for once feeling what family meant...real family? 

She asked me if I wanted to have children the other day...and I didn't answer not right away. I couldn't...because all I saw the illusion of hope in her eyes, and I remembered how it felt to be surprised...And also how it felt when the curtain fell and the truth was all that remained. It all came back...the hurt, the pain, the disappointment, the disbelief. So, I in turn created an illusion, a distraction. And I didn't tell her the truth. The truth that I often doubt that others can love me, that I deserve to be loved, deserved to be a mother. He made me fear love. And while I can forgive what he did to me, that is something I cannot forget, something that I believe may be unforgivable.