Have you ever counted your breaths? Closed your eyes and just thought- “In, out, in, out, in, out” and begged to anyone and anything that listened that doing so- doing such a stupid act would end your pain?
If you have not then you may not understand.
Maybe you can’t hear your heartbeat and maybe you’ve never prayed that the stitches keeping you together don’t pop open.
Maybe you’ve never felt the lead in your veins holding you down and making it impossible to move forward because everything inside you just hurts and there’s nothing you can do but just take it and hope it passes
Maybe you’ve never whispered nonsense to yourself about drowning and breathing and rubbing salt in your own wounds because you can’t imagine how you do this to yourself unless you love the pain and in the end when it’s all said and done and the hurt has passed you miss it.
Maybe everything is nonsense and later when you sit in front of your heart and stare at your name in it you don’t question how it belongs to you.
But maybe you do.
And if you do I suggest that you grab something comforting, something beautiful and anchoring and I suggest that you hang on to it because it will keep you here even when you doubt it’s powers, it will keep you among your friends, pretending like you’re fine, or among your parents smiling for their benefit, or maybe it will just keep you in your favorite dark corner, nursing your wounds or enjoying the time in between broken stitches.
If you keep reading, I can’t guarantee that your stitches will stay closed.
Maybe your heart will leap in understanding and you’ll scream “Yes! Yes! This is me, I get it!” but not out loud, never out loud because then someone might come to ask if you’re alright and you may not have an answer for them because they just keep asking and you both know the truth but they want you to say “I’m fine” because if you do it means that you’re still fighting to stay afloat.
I can not destroy you.
They can not destroy you
Your armor is indestructible and you are the only person under it to twist the knife into your gut.
So don’t give yourself the chance.
Put your heart in a jar and put it on display and when people pass they will look at it and they will think “Interesting”.
Not beautiful.
Not broken.
Interesting. and interesting alone.
and if you simply take a pen to your name, scratch it out  and laugh at the freedom then they will not know it is yours either.
The shackles holding you to it will be gone
You will be free
You will be alive
Not because you let go, because I don’t care what people say, letting go is impossible, but because you’re detatched from the pain
The armor you wear may be heavy but you are fighting a war and you can stand up straight and feel it in your very core
don’t let the pain drive you into sleeping it off, stand and laugh at it and it’s pathetic attempt to destroy you
The pain can not destroy you
The pain is outside your armor, you are safe, you are free
Laugh at it and dare it to come closer,
Stitch up your wounds with metal because you are no longer afraid to burn yourself on it, or live with the deep cold weight because that heavy chest of yours will just inspire you to hold it higher.
Be strong. This fight is one you were born to win and I’d like to see the demons howling at your door get in and hurt you with your heart jar and your crossed out name and your metal stitches.
The world can not hurt you now.