I hurt myself today
To see if I’d still feel.
I focus on the pain,
The only thing that’s real.
Sometimes it feels like I am watching the world through my front window.
The world–mostly my friends–is having fun and doing great things. All with each other.
While I sit in my living room amongst the toys and the whining toddler and the waves of nausea and smell of toddler poop.
I feel forgotten.
Maybe not completely forgotten, but avoided. Avoided long enough that I have been forgotten.
Nobody wants to invite the downer.
Nobody wants to try to “have fun” with someone who is going through a “phase”. Again.
What have I become,
my sweetest friend?
Everyone I know
Goes away in the end.
You could have it all,
My empire of dirt.
I will let you down,
I will make you hurt.
My jokes fall short.
I break plans and then wallow when no one invites us around anymore.
I tell myself that I am a terrible friend, wife, daughter, mother.
But I want people to like me.
I am a ball of contradictions.
I don’t make sense. To you or myself.
I let myself down by not accomplishing my goals.
I let my loved ones down by not doing what I say I will do.
I am unreliable.
I am unstable.
I have done this to myself.
I wear this crown of shit,
Upon my liar’s chair.
Full of broken thoughts
I cannot repair.
Beneath the stains of time
The feelings disappear.
You are someone else,
I am still right here.
My friends and family move on and live without me.
I am still here. Behind my window.
And when I feel better? When I snap out of it?
Everyone has changed.
There is no trust.
There is no laughter.
There are eye rolls and polite nods.
And an empty inbox.
And a quiet cell phone.
If I could start again
A million miles away,
I would keep myself.
I would find a way.
I wish I knew when this began.
I wish I could go back and keep Katie the way she was.
I wish my friends would treat my like they always did.
I wish “depression” wasn’t a deal breaker.
*”Hurt” is by Nine Inch Nails, but I chose to use the Johnny Cash version because it is hauntingly beautiful.
