They don’t want you to talk about it

How it starts off with platitudes of romance, pedestals, and adoration and, once trust is earned, follow, control, jealousy, subtle manipulation, systematic isolation, microscopic concentration.

They don’t want you to talk about it.

How you got so swept up in the romance, the music, the passion, the project, convinced by them that you were their savior, and it is through you and you alone that they may reach exultation.

They don’t want you to talk about it.

How at some point that ability to save turned into an all-consuming responsibility, but by then the burden was so familiar that you had grown comfortable in the discomfort, and reaching for something different or better seemed like something that only other people deserved.

They don’t want you to talk about it.

How the loneliness seeps into your bones like a teabag that’s been left steeping three days too long.

They don’t want you to talk about it.

How they know everyone in the outside world looks in and sees this dreamy, idyllic life that is so far from the truth that you dare not speak a word.

They don’t want you to talk about it.

How everything feels like your fault, how you’re always saying sorry, how the feeling of eggshells on the soles of your feet is familiar as the rising sun.

They don’t want you to talk about it.

How your friends still keep in touch, but mostly just look at you with sad eyes and long sighs and lamentations and recitations of memories of better times.

They don’t want you to talk about it

How sex is used as a tool to glean vulnerability and connection that would otherwise not be given.

They don’t want you to talk about it.

How your money disappears faster than you can make it and there’s always an extraordinary explanation as to why those dollars where so desperately needed.

They don’t want you to talk about it.

How they’ll buy drugs before eggs, milk, and cheese.

They don’t want you to talk about it.

How they’ll beat you and then take you for dinner, but not before asking you to wear long sleeves to hide your bruised skin.

They don’t want you to talk about it.

How you wait ‘til they leave to allow the heaves, the sobs and sadness take over and, just for a moment, oblivion surrounds you, and you forget just how far from yourself you’ve become.

They don’t want you to talk about it.

How you can fit into jeans from when you were sixteen and the bones in your hips jut out in a way that no one whose hips have born a child should jut.

They don’t want you to talk about it.

How you have the capacity to rise up, to heal, to transcend, to totally annihilate the false self that they have been convincing you it you for far too long.

They don’t want you to talk about it.

How you and everyone else in this world is individually responsible for creating and maintaining your own happiness and wellbeing.

They don’t want you to talk about it.

How deep down you know belonging in a real is always more important than looking good.

They don’t want you to talk about it.

How with courage, honesty, connection, and heart, freedom may be sought, and that no matter what, life is never easy, but it can be joyful.

They don’t want you to talk about it.

And they certainly don’t want me to talk to you about it, and yet, here we are.