shrapnel

how do you set down an invisible load that no one can see you carrying?

i'm tired of holding it. it's a decade heavy, maybe heavier.

my fucking back hurts.

but to just drop it -- to just roll my shoulders back and let it drop to the ground --

it may be invisible but its weight

its weight would cause an earthquake.

it would bring too many people to their knees,

force too much shrapnel in every which direction,

no one would have enough time to react.

and worrying more about protecting everyone else

is what got me here.

it's what made me start picking up the pieces

that were shattering off my heart

from general wear and tear,

the usual surface-level heartbreaks,

boys with pimply faces, girls with knives behind their backs,

the easy stuff.

and i tucked it behind me-

in my pocket, my purse,

the back of my shoe

wherever it fit that was out of sight.

but the shards became bigger,

as heartaches always do,

and the damage was greater.

but i'd already set precedence.

i'd become The Girl Who Does Not Need

and so i just got more creative with ways to carry

the increasing weight

of my breaking heart.

and i've reached a strange crossroads

where i've taken the scraps of a heart

i was left with from the trainwreck

of my twenties

all the ways in which

i set myself on fire over and over again

and i took it and planted it

and i watered it

and i helped it grow.

i've been singing to it. dancing with it.

crying for it. weeping body-heaving, wretching sobs of grief

for the things it has been through

and the ways in which i silenced it.

and it's finally whole.

just in time for me to complete 30 laps around the sun.

it's misshapen and lopsided,

a hojpodged mosaic. it's not much to look at.

but goddamn can it feel.

parts of it are still so raw --

i lost a chunk when my son was born, it belongs to him now

and in its space there is light.

eventually, i hope to replace the rest

of the scar tissue with light

but it is finally

finally

whole enough to speak to me.

and i am brave enough to listen.

but there's still the problem of these burdensome shards

that i've been carrying for so long now

i am still The Girl Who Does Not Need

and it feels much too late to bring attention

to the weight on my back

sinking me slowly -- begging me

to just drown already

to just let it take me down

because it would be so easy.

i hate easy.

i have tried to set it all down slowly

bit by bit

but it just doesn't work that way

there's too much of it to compartmentalize

that when i try and pick out certain pieces

it all starts falling like an avalanche

and i just can't

i can't

i can't

i don't want to. i don't want to shift the earth

beneath the feet of the people closest to me.

i don't want to alert them to the kind of monster i've been.

the beds i've laid in. the foolish things i've done.

i don't want to announce my sins on loudspeaker,

i don't want the attention they'll garner,

i just want to keep living this peaceful life

i've fought so fucking hard to build for myself.

and, seemingly, i can't,

if i'm always balancing the weight

of my secrets

and my heartbreaks

on my back.

but now that i've stitched together this heart

that finally beats and works like it's supposed to,

it feels everything like a grizzly bear to the chest.

and it wakes me at night saying let it all out

it says you are enough, you are whole, you don't need this armor

and i realize i'm carrying it

so i can stay bent over from the weight,

face to the ground, protecting my heart,

staying scared to look up.

to drop it, i have to stand.

and when i'm standing,

i am going to be seen.

for the first time, as myself --

surrounded by the rubble of everyone i've been

everything i've done

everywhere i've been

on display like a museum.

for free admission, i will let my friends and family

walk through my shards and examine them

ask questions if they want

hope that some strangers wander through and

see themselves in some of the wreckage

and hope the good ones stick around

to help me clean it up

to help me mend these

two halves of a life --

burdened to unburdened.

chaos to predictability.

darkness to light.

frankly, i've run out of ways

to numb out the gnawing

and i'm so low on sleep

that i'm desperate for peace

and so here i go

bracing myself for impact