Lately, I’ve come to the realizing that I am not entirely inhabited by myself anymore. It is a strange haunting, to walk through the rooms of your own body and feel like a guest, or worse, a landlord who has lost control of the property. In this heightened state of awareness, I see now that for so long, I have been curating your feelings, tending to them like a garden that wasn't mine, only to discover that my motives were transactional. I wanted a return on an investment that was never guaranteed. And now, the disappointment is visceral; it is not just a mood but a physical location I cannot leave. It is sharp in every inhale, a particulate matter that scrapes the lungs, while the anger lives in the exhale, hot and heavy.
You offer apologies on repeat, a broken record of regret, but accepting them isn't as simple as saying yes, I forgive. Forgiveness feels like a door I am too tired to open. I know, logically, that I am worth more than this cycle, but there is a wretched, sinking sadness in realizing I planted my trust in soil that couldn't hold it. It washes away with the first rain. It is humiliating to think that I poured myself into a vessel with a crack I chose to ignore, and now, even the smallest fragment of my presence feels like a gift you no longer deserve to unwrap.
The irony is the sharpest thing of all: I spent years terrified of disappointing you. I walked on eggshells, I held my tongue, I molded my shape to fit your hands because I was so afraid of being the one to let you down. And yet, here I am, the one bearing the weight of it. No matter how far we drive, no matter the distance we put between us and the past, you seem to have a different way of consuming the journey, while I am just watching the road blur. I am disappointed because I am forced to be ordinary again, to pretend that the before and after are indistinguishable, when in reality, everything has shifted.
It feels unjust, this suspicion that sits like a stone in the gut, a permanent sentry guarding against pain. But what is there to do? My energy is a dry well; the bucket comes up empty every time. Funny thing about being this hollowed out—about having your trust scraped away until there is nothing left—is that the survival instinct goes quiet. Even if the end came right now, if the lights went out and the curtain fell, I don’t think I have a reason left to beg to keep living. I am just waiting for the water to stop shivering.