Walking Away Scathed

I sit in front of a computer sometimes and before I know it, it's 2AM. It isn't where I'd like to be, but its where I sit.

In this position, its like you're being held under a constant fear of a great pain to be unleashed across your entire body; like an intense and chronic anticipation of ripping a sticking bandage from your skin. Its an overwhelming, nauseating feeling that accompanies you on the bus, on the walk toward where you live, in the job interview, talking to friends and even when you sleep.

You just wait and wait and hope that it's ripped off soon - then you'll know if your insides come spilling out or if the wound has healed. Or maybe it's even more complicated than that; a feeling of hopelessness yields to one of longing, one of renewal. I don't feel like my old self, I don't want to be that old self, I am in a process of change.

The confluence of distance and immediacy, the amalgam of thinking that another sits at the same computer, another coughs up her medicine in the middle of the night, this shattered heart cannot bear. I hold the shards of it in one of my bloodied hands, the other gripping a hammer of my own making. What is done cannot be undone, even though a repair might come too late, I will endeavor to make it all better. I hope I get that chance, love, even if it takes me all my life.