Human Enough

It does get easier, in one of two ways:

You close into yourself, for a while, letting the strings and ribbons they tied around your heart fall off. Then you can breathe again and all those places feel new again. The past isn't changed but the way you absorb those places, those sights and smells, isn't going through a filter made of that other person anymore.

Or you close into yourself, for a while, hiding backstage, with the dust and used costumes, until you find a mask that looks close enough to you that it just might fool everyone. So you put it on and you walk out on stage. And everyone applauds and throws roses. You bow, you've done it. You've tricked them all. You accept the good for you's and the atta boy's, letting them all believe you're stronger than you really are. The strings and ribbons around your heart get tangled and harden into chains. But you'll be fine, you've still got your mask; you can fool everyone. Despite the heaviness in your chest...

And eventually you stop caring, stop feeling, and you forget. You forget that the face you're wearing isn't yours, that the smiles and the dances and the clothes, it's all just an act. That the slowing, the heaviness you're feeling isn't the chains weighing you down... this isn't you.

You were never out here. You never went out on stage. No one threw roses to your performance. You're still backstage, covered in dust and cobwebs, left alone and cold, forgotten. You found a box of faces and put one on, and the face that was yours fell away. Somewhere in the dark it fashioned itself a costume and shambled its way out to the world. And no one noticed. You seemed fine. You ate and drank and slept. You went to work and smiled and watched movies. A face and some clothes. Human enough to fool the world.

And you sit in the dark, with bats and spiders, wearing a face you don't recognize. Afraid to move, afraid to breathe, because last time it hurt.

And you don't even realize that the chains around your heart rusted and fell off long ago, and the only thing keeping you alone in that dark forgotten corner is you.