Shattered

Every day I wake up and put on a smile, a hollow, defeated smile. This becomes almost ritualistic. Nothing changes. Everything stays relatively the same. Each morning I follow a routine. Wake up, reply to everyone on my phone, dance around my room, and drink my coffee. I am continuously on my phone messaging people back, talking to those around me, praying I am not replaced, or forgotten. But what I hide more than anything is my shattered heart. I smile through the pain and sadness, disregarding the tears pleading to slip out. Instead, I cry in secret, in the shower, bed, in the middle of the night, alone in my car. I mask it with techniques I learned early on in life to decrease the redness and swelling that come with crying. Whether this is a cold, wet towel on my face, coughing to fix breathing patterns or even just making a stupid story up to hide my tears. No one knows. No one sees just how shattered I am.

Around certain times of the year, the battle within myself increases. I feel myself breaking even more than before. I have to rebuild myself every time. Months of emotional isolation just to get back to a stable place in life. Only to shatter once more next year. When those I care for the most look past or not even notice that I am falling apart, I begin to question if maybe I am invisible to them. Am I just someone they have around for themselves? I speak on issues that haunt me, and I am met with stillness. When I try to bring the conversation back to the forefront again, I am matched with indifference.

For a while, I nursed my shattered soul with alcohol and random men. Men whose bed I would sneak out of at the first sign of daylight. Only spending the night so I am not alone. Men who gave me alcohol with certain expectations, expectations I would meet just to ensure I was not alone. The alcohol was my savior. I would drink with hopes of blacking out and being able to sleep at night. I spent almost a whole year drinking myself away every single night. I spent an entire year trying to force alcohol to heal my wounds. Wounds that I was afraid to even touch. I mask my feelings by joking about my past actions either with these men or anything, really. Humor is my way to vent to my friends without raising any alarms. It is the only way I know how. I joke about the sex we would have and how broken I am. We laugh. That is all we can do. That is all I can do.

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