There are some types of injuries that don’t show on the outside. They bleed inside, where no one sees, in an endless agonizing trickle of despair. The despair is multiplied by the knowledge that since no one can see, nothing can be proven, and therefore no one can help. No one knows you need help.

You don’t even admit you do.

It began so subtly that you barely noticed something was off. A look of distaste when you laughed unreservedly, or your stories entertained people too totally, or you drew too much attention away from him with your absolute joy in the moment.

He wasn’t strong enough to love you, so he tore you down.

Your tears were a pathetic weakness, your need for companionship clingy and excessive, your attempts to repair and rebuild, ridiculous and unnecessary. You needed to get a life of your own and quit expecting him to be there for you when he had other shit to do. Jesus Christ, give him a break already.

He looks at you with cold, uncaring eyes as you tell him you expected a partner, a companion, a lover, a friend. You try to reach the mind of someone who will only give what he must to not look badly to the public eye. When he does something nice for you? It’s for show. He would look like a total asshole if he didn’t.

He’s a narcissistic manipulator.

After years of this, it’s not just your spine that becomes steel. Your heart solidifies, your dreams become the stones you step on to make it through the days, and the only thing left that you hope for is to be left alone. Your desire becomes distaste, your future something you cannot bear to think about or you’ll go mad.

The heart of you is locked up tight against wounding…and wonder.

You save yourself by sealing yourself off from any chance of harm or happiness, rapture or ridicule, desire or desperation. You turn yourself into the perfect female machine that cannot be touched or tormented. You not only don’t need him anymore, but you absolutely don’t want him.

Yet, here you are.

What will it take for you to see your beauty to the world? What will it take to acknowledge your worth, and defend it from slander? To actually see and accept that his weaknesses and injuries are not yours to pay for, or carry every day? That he has the power to choose his own life…

But he cannot choose yours?

What will it take for you to wake up, stand up, face off, and walk away? How many invisible hits will it take? How many years of isolation? How many times will you be destroyed enough to think that if he just drew blood you could turn to someone for help? Walk away, my beloved sister…

Walk .Away.