Deliverance
The days seem so much longer when you’re lonely. The sun isn’t as bright, and words lose their meaning. People come and go from public places just like they do in your life, your heart, as if you are a thing to be used up and cast aside — worn, broken, faded.
You feel as though there is a stamp on your forehead reading “As is” in letters bolder than your character, a warning to all that you are worth far less than your asking price. And so you wait.
Days, weeks, months, years. You wait until the very act of inactivity ruins you; until somebody tries to pick up the pieces before shattering them further; until you are left with nothing but your pride that dwindles more and more each day.
But you don’t let them see you cry. Emotions are reserved for long, hot showers that leave your skin pink and eyelids searing with the sting of your own restraint. It is the hardest thing in the world to act like you don’t care, like nothing hurts. But you do it.
You wear your worries like winter clothes. Layers upon layers of the thickest wool. First sadness, then apathy. Anger, fear, indifference. You represent all these things you never knew existed as you embody the absence of love. People break your walls because you want them to. You let them.
But your soul is an enigma. It is likened to a tree planted in hope, branches longing, rooted in the soil that is mistrust. And still, you wait. You wait for permission to live freely, to taste that reckless abandon you crave.
You wait for deliverance from yourself.
