Writing Prompt:
Shutdown - Joywave
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"Why
did he leave me?" She wailed, her sad voice echoing softly off the
bathroom tiles.
She was trying hard to get a grip on herself as her fingers curled around her
throat amid another soul-wrenching sob that choked her on its way out. She
sounded strangled, like she was in pain, which she was, but she was trying to
hold the shaking of her hands at bay, save for her entire body feeling like it
was caving in on itself. The pain was far more than emotional at this point,
she was digging her nails into her tender flesh, trying to dig her way back out,
but all she succeeded in was creating half-moons on her skin.
"Why does everyone leave me?"
She knew why they did; it always came after one misunderstanding after another.
She thought she was easy to love, but they always walked out after she brought
up something that hurt. No matter how softly she spoke or how harshly she cried
about the hurt, it never mattered how it came out; it never stopped anyone from
leaving her in a pile of deflated flesh and bones covered in tears and years of
emotional bruising.
Her heart hurt as it thumped wildly, her sternum hurt from the anxiety, her
fingers hurt from gripping, her skin hurt from her nails digging, and her
entire body felt like it was cramped up and stiff from clenching every muscle
after each sob that tensed her up with uncontrollable shaking.
Why do people fall in love repeatedly if this is the outcome? If folding some
shirts did her to this extent, she couldn't imagine when the boxes were gone,
when he took up nearly an inch in the apartment, or his face no longer being
there in her mind.
It's the smell in those same shirts, the ones she bought folded in between old
ones, layers of past and present, the images of him in each article, and then
another body-tensing sob escapes just as she covers her mouth and cries into
it. Her eyes are held tightly shut, but the tears stream out hot down her
cheeks and neck, soaking her camisole. She was losing it, her brain echoed the
sentiment every few sobs, but she couldn't be bothered with the feelings of
understanding because she didn't understand a thing.
She didn't understand why he would treat her differently enough to hurt her,
even insecure in himself; why did he thrust those feelings down her throat like
emotional rape? His cold fingers threaded through her hair and held it in a fist
until she became uncertain and ashamed for staying in a relationship that hurt
more than it healed.
Another sob made her bite down on her bottom lip as it quivered.
He was never like that, cruel, harsh, and mean. He was once a kind-hearted man
who would bend backward and give the shirt off his back to make someone smile.
It took months for her to realize that he was struggling with some demon or
another, but she lacked the willpower to help him while she was trying just to
stay afloat herself. With open arms, he spurred her away. All she wanted was
his arms around her, but as he changed, so did she. She began to self-soothe,
hide in her room, spend more time away from the house, and more time distracted
by anything and everything, so she didn't feel the pain.
She took a shaky deep breath as the sobbing subsided for a moment; her hands
drifted down her body to rest curled on the cool floor, her head dropping back
on the wall to look up at the dark ceiling. One by one she willed her muscles
and stiff joints to try to relax while they had a moment of peace. She knew it
wouldn’t be long until another onslaught came because her memories constantly
stirred up a new batch.
She went
to the bathroom in time to dry heave and gasp as bile filled her throat and
tears seared her eyes. She should be used to the pain, to this heartache, but
it was all a bunch of feelings she stored away in hopes she wouldn’t need the
memory of them again. She sat in her pile of towels she dragged to the floor on
her way down the emotional rabbit hole.
When friends asked her if she was okay, she would nod and smile. When strangers
asked her about her day, she would say it was good; when her therapist asked
her about her relationship status, she said it had never been better!
It had been better; she couldn’t talk about the pain he had started to inflict
on her already wounded soul years after the scars had begun to heal.
She absently stroked her arm up and down as she slid her legs down and out in
front of her, her feet relaxing and falling comfortably.
She was used to hiding in bathrooms to cry, the soul-searing pain, the burning
tear tracks on her cheeks from calling sore tear ducts that were pissed off
from the amount of salty water that had come out in the past several days.
Her brain was weary with such emotional turmoil, and her limbs were ready to
give up on holding anything else together if she couldn’t even try herself. Her
body was crumbling one mental and emotional pillar at a time, and she was
helpless against the tearful onslaught of mental warfare.
She sniffled but leaned over for tissue paper to clear her nose. Crying made
her face hurt and her nose run; it made her whole body riot because everything
inside her hated being sad.
But her body had the muscle memory of sadness, heartbreak, emotional upheaval,
and the destruction of her known world. What she had once started making whole
once again collapsed at her feet while he strolled away, blaming her.
He ended up being like everyone else, throwing the blame her way while she
stayed quiet in the background avoiding everyone's looks of distaste and shame.
The shame, she thought, was the worst.
It wasn’t hers to feel, but oh, did she think it. Years of shame were cast on
her for speaking out against injustice and then being thrown into the bullpen
of hurled insults, lies, and buckets of blood-red shame dumped upon her emotionally
crippled body.
When all you want is the love of another, you close your eyes to the flags thrown
out over the years in hopes that it’s only temporary. When you open your mouth,
she found, to wonder aloud at the slights, the candid insults hidden in humor
or spoken in front of an audience, do you get them all thrown back into your
face?
Shame on you, they’d say, and I’d agree. Shame on me for believing that this
time would be the last. Each time this happens, it gets worse; the healing
never quite sticks because we don’t know when the scars are healed until the
next one steps up and starts picking at the scabs or cutting back open the
wounds.
It's a never-ending dance with the devil, but I crave his touch when I don’t
receive it freely. I laid my sacrifice at his feet each time, my heart beating
its pathetic little beat, ill-timed, bruised, for better or worse, I offer it
up to the next contender in hopes I don’t fall back to my knees on the tiled
floor.
The
scenery is always different, but the destination is always the same. Cold
tiles, a pile of towels, and plenty of tears to wash clean any transgressions against
me.
But there would always lay shame.
Because of the pointed stares, and the whispers behind my back, my voice has
always been louder as she looks at herself in the mirror.
“This is what you deserve,” She whispered, tears trickling down her sallow, colorless
cheeks, “you’re meant to be alone, remember? That’s what she told you. You’d
never be worth anyone's love. You’re better off alone because, at least alone,
you won’t feel the deep sadness of watching someone push away from you,
disappear from your view even though they’re right next to you. You’ll never be
enough. No matter what you do or if you succeed in life, you’ll never be enough
for anyone because you can’t even be enough for yourself. Your family doesn’t even
love you. What makes you think someone will stick by your side? Everyone left
you; if you could, you’d leave yourself too. You're not worth sticking around.
Once they took the best parts of you, the ones you offer without hesitation,
you’ll be left again to pick up the pieces.”
Her eyes well with tears again, but she stays slumped against the wall and just
lets the tears follow their predecessors salty tracks.
“Stop it.” She shakily whispered to herself. She knew this train of thought
would not help her current situation because she was nearing a time when she
needed a hard reset. Like a computer facing a reboot, she was there; she had
all she could take in the emotional department and was ready to sleep it off.
She turned her head to look out of the bathroom door to the soft glow of her
bedroom light spilling softly across the beige tiles, a warm, welcoming glow.
She didn’t know how many naps she could take until she returned to normalcy.
She lifted a hand to swipe at her tears with the palm of her hand.
She wasn’t made for this much pain, and she knew she could only hold out for so
long before the depression would set in and whisper dark thoughts that would
echo like a calming balm on her wounded soul. She wasn’t one to listen to the
calling of Death itself, but sometimes she indulged in the thought of the all-consuming
darkness that would warm her from the inside out in its vast nothingness.
Or so she thought, but that wasn’t here nor there right this second.
Just this all-consuming sadness of an awful present and an unknown future.
She stayed on the floor until her brain went numb and quieted itself. She took
the last bit of strength she could muster to stand up, pulling herself up one
bit at a time from the broken shards of herself that lay on the floor around
her. She washed her face, averting her eyes so she didn’t see the wreckage she had
endured. She was embarrassed at her blatant show of grief that she could never
look herself in the eye afterward. She peeled her clothes off, and a struggle ensued
because she was weak, her arms heavy, her feet dragging, but once she hit that
bed, she curled into the envelope of blankets that welcomed her into the fold.
She welcomed the temporary darkness with which she became fast friends because,
within those dark moments of slumber, her dreams played out where there weren’t
these lists upon lists of worries, problems, or trails of tears. The nightmare
that became her life stayed away from her dreams, and she found a reprieve
within her head where during waking hours, the same place that tortured her
endlessly played on loop everything that had been said about her.
To be bullied in adulthood was a sad game to play, and no matter what you said,
or what you did, or how good you behaved, or the good you provided, it would
never be enough to hush the words spoken out loud.
Cheater, tramp, whore, liar, shameful girl, ungrateful, worthless, useless, she’ll
never be good enough.
She curls tighter into her blankets and closes her eyes tight.
“Stop it.” She repeats softly, pleading for the universe to calm her mind. Just
for now, she promised, just stop it for now.
If it came back in the morning, like it always did, she’d be prepared to fight
the good fight once again until she wound up huddled on the towels once more,
no food in her stomach to let out.
Just for once, she needed the darkness to hold her through the night, to rock
her softly, and remind her that maybe all of this was just a dream, that maybe
once her well-traveled feet touched the ground in the morning, she felt that
solid base beneath her. Until then, darkness promised, get carried away; this
sadness isn’t here to stay.
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