I’m in mourning. I’m grieving the loss of so many things it’s overwhelming to me. I can’t begin to heal yet because they’re everywhere; vicious, to the bone slices that render me powerless to do anything but marvel at my ability to function normally.

I’m ashamed at my lack of self-respect and the unwillingness to cry foul when I’m being belittled. I’m filled with sorrow that I’m willing to minimize the showing of my heart and the sharing of my thoughts to make another more comfortable. I watch my words and the way I phrase things instead of freely communicating.

I’ve been a fraud.

I’ve hidden myself for so long, even I don’t know me. I’ve changed to suit those important to me for whatever reason. I’ve put others first when it was ridiculous and harmful to me to do so. I didn’t say “no” so many times when I should have. I didn’t mark the boundaries to protect my heart and the respect I should have carried for myself there. I let myself down and broke my own heart.

I’m not a beautiful chaotic mess, I am a flaming mass of regret for not learning the lessons sooner. I carry them as bruises on my heart and contusions to my soul. Nobody can help me, no one can heal me, there is not a single person out there who can make me rise like a goddamn phoenix from these smoldering ashes.

I’m going to have to do that shit myself.

I mourn my lack of honesty to myself. I’ve got to tell you the truth here while I’m on a roll. I’m so tired. My heart, soul, spirit and mind are weary from rolling the stone from the mouth of the tomb. I’m tired of allowing myself to be manipulated. Just accepting all the agony I brought upon myself is exhausting. It takes a lot of really hard work and focus to totally destroy your own chances to live and breathe freely.  We all keep peering into the tomb to see if anything comes out. No sign of life yet.

It takes a champion in self-destruction to be successful at this for a lifetime, but I’ve been nothing if not committed to the cause. It makes me shudder to realize I’ve carried some of it here with me. That shit clings. I don’t think anything but the shock of actually seeing myself repeating the unacceptable could have made me aware of the necessity to burn every bit of this out of me. I won’t take any more of this. It will be the death of anything worth having in me.

I mourn the part of me that loves you. The heart of me is cracked and aching from restraining itself from going where it’s not treasured. Even the joy in me weeps from its inability to reach into you and give you some sense of its power. I don’t blame you for not loving me, I just wish you’d been courageous enough to be willing to try.

I’ve learned that love gets labels slapped on it and slid into the appropriate slot to make people more comfortable. It apparently requires documents and promises and other meaningless things to make it some kind of goal worth achieving. It’s not a goal, it’s who you are. Or who you’re not. It’s not a tee shirt or a ring. The paper, the ring and the labels are worthless without the courage to love someone and allowing them to love you back.

All the documentation and diamonds I have will not hold a heart. Only love will. That huge, nameless, label-less love that you’re holding back because it’s just way too big and powerful? That love in there that scares the shit out of you because you’d be throwing yourself on the line? That love that you talk about and write about and sing about? You know, the one that you hide from because it will turn you into more than you’re comfortable with?

That’s the kind of love people will work their asses off to keep alive.

I have that. I feel it. I carry it with me. I will not be careless with my heart again.

But I will be fearless when I give it next.