It was one of those weird moments, like when you write a word so many times that you don't recognize it anymore, I didn't recognize me. I saw a little girl lost in the grocery store and the one crying on the tile gym floor and the one watching her life disappear through the rear window of an old gold minivan.
I wasn't strong. I wasn't independent. I had eyes full of regrets and pain and unresolved brokenness. The superglue was wearing apart, I wasn't holding myself together. All the things I prided myself in being we're as worn away as the eyeliner I had put on flippantly at that morning stoplight.
And I had to admit I'm not ok.
It's funny how Satan works. You don't even realize all the pieces are falling out of place. You don't see the shots taken at your heart, the speakers in your head, the soundtracks of all the things you never wanted to hear being put together carefully and cleverly and then all at once when you've been weakened to the point of submission, he yells action and the bright lights hit your face and you realize that your to-done list of moving on has a sequel and you're once again the star of your very own insecurities.
Congratulations. An Oscar to you for the most realistic breakdown of the year.
But the most twisted part of it all is that when the breakdown is over and the crew is gone and lights shut off you're left alone with those speakers they conveniently left in your head.
I think the worst part isn't the building of the Trojan horse, it's not the betrayal, it's not the initial, blood warming attack. It's that it's left there. It's that it's written about in the history books of your head. It's that you survived it just enough to lay there at night and listen to that record playing on repeat whispering, "you failed, you failed, you're not enough and you won't be and this happy little fantasy you're living out is just going to be another disappointment in your life because that's all your worth."
It's the twisted Grimm brothers ending to my spotlit breakdown.
It's the voices I can't mute because I've lost the remote.
...hey Jesus, can you mute them?
Is there a sledgehammer handy to smash them once and for all?
