Lights out Alice!
It is hard to be broken. To be told a million times by people that you have a million flaws. To be told that you will never fit in. To be rejected time and time again for being yourself and not putting up a mask for the world. To not be perfect. To not be good enough...actually for never being good enough.
But what they don't know is that your head is a worse place. You see the million and ten flaws that you have and not just the million that is visible to others. You see the things you did to go above and beyond, while keeping your needs to the side to ensure that the other person has everything that might possibly need and then you see those preparations getting trampled and taken for granted. It's okay you reassure yourself, because these were not done with recognition in mind, just the fact that you would do it for people you care about.
You bring down your walls, against the better judgement of your head, justifying that it will never know until it tries. You tell that you have put safeguards in place, that this time it will be different. This time they will be better, but even if they are not, this time you will not go all in or beg them to stay or get attached. This time you will be one of the cool guys and approach it with an air of indifference. This time you will be one of the bad ones and ignore the subtle hints or not do everything possible to make that other person comfortable. This time you will not make them feel like you are a safe place. This time you will not show them what peace is like. You will not show them what unfettered affection is like, you will not give them a taste of that tranquility that has been ever so elusive in your life.
You smile. Just a little as you walk towards another lie. No, not at the person, no. But at the lies you tell yourself on how it will all be different this time and yet you go ahead and repeat the same pattern all over again.
They leave again.
You are broken again.
You are reminded that you are broken and will never fit in. You are reminded of your million flaws. You smile because deep down you know the count is a million and ten and not the million that they know. Somehow it gives you some sense of satisfaction to see them being wrong by proving that you are far more broken than they will ever realize yet you have survived all this while.
You smile again, but this time nervously like a scared child who has broken the vase while playing in the living room even though your mom told you repeatedly otherwise. Your mom, which in this case is your brain walks in, looks at the shattered vase, which in this case is your heart and then turns to look at you. You tremble and nearly start sobbing. You know this look. You are expecting a "I told you to not play with your heart" statement. You are expecting a lambasting. The anticipation hurts you more than any scolding ever would. Brain walks slowly towards you. You tremble in fear. But all it does it pat your hair and then walks out of the room. It knows, like every mother, that now is not the right time to scold. It is the time to support you. It returns to the room with a broom and silently starts collecting the broken pieces of your heart from the floor. All this silence scares you even more. You start wailing hoping to get some sort of reaction but the silence hurts more than any scolding ever could. You start giving justifications. The bawling becomes louder. Sorries fly galore and before anyone can get another word in, you start chanting all the ways in which you will be better the next time around and never repeat the same mistake. Still no response. Your sobs intensifies. You are standing at the same place, frozen in fear but searching desperately with your eyes for any emotion that would indicate how brain will respond next. But by this time, head has collected all the pieces of your broken heart from the floor into the dust-pan and turns to face you. It walks slowly towards you in the same quietness that unsettled you in the first place.
The slow gait suddenly strikes something in you. Is your head quiet or is the pain so loud that you cannot hear anything? Like the temporary deafness that occurs when a flashbang goes off near you, was it that you couldn't hear anything in the pursuit of another person, swept so far deep into the pond that no visible light of rationality or audible sounds of pragmaticism could ever reach you? You try to turn around and frantically focus on any other sound, to prove that you could hear it all along. Nothing. No wise words, no long term focus, no listening to people that care about you, nothing was audible. Suddenly you see a silhouette. Your head has reached you and is standing in a towering presence over you. Was it always that your head towered over you, you question yourself. In an immediate snap, you realize that the presence of the person is growing. No, you realize in the very next moment that it is not them but in fact it is you who seems to be exponentially shrinking in their presence. You are so consumed by these thoughts that you barely register the soft and gentle touch that is repeatedly operating on your body. By the time your emotions are able to register the feeling and you turn to look towards the source of the touch, it strikes you. There was a void, an emptiness where your heart once used to be. Broken though it may be, your head tries to slowly place the pieces of your heart back in its place. You are unable to move. You are trembling and shaking inside but your body lies deathly still from the fear that any movement might hamper this delicate operation.
There is a realization that strikes you. You look up and find that your head looking directly in your eyes. It was waiting all along for you to come to this conclusion. The pieces of your heart don't fit. It will never go back the way it was...
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