undertow

I remember sand. Not glittering, sparkling dunes but pure grit, choking up my nose and throat. Scratching and scraping as I try to breathe. I’m trying to escape but something is pulling me down. Trapped in the current. I don’t know how I got here. The last thing I remember is sharp words, uncaring tongue, dispassionate gaze. It started out as a gasp for help. A clearing of the throat. Looking for a tiny spark to chase away the blackness. I thought that we were in this together. I’m always carrying your weight, chasing down your demons and laying them to rest. I don’t know why it’s always a shock that you just look away. Act like I’m howling and shrieking, a rabid wolf and an angry moon. Unreasonable. And violent in my unreasonableness. The proverb is true – no man is an island – but you’re always happy to launch me off towards the darkness on my own. My general, average emotional responses – the fears and stresses you find standard across the board – are not character flaws. But your inability to deal with anyone’s emotional state is absolutely something broken in you. How do I love someone who is devoid of empathy? Who would rather let me drown that extend one tiny sliver of hope? The truth of the matter is that you are the salt in my wounds. You make it so difficult for me to heal that I sink deeper and faster into the darkness than I ever would on my own. And instead of dragging myself out of this fucking hopeless, passionless existence, I just let you pull me further and further away from land, hope, love, freedom. And so I drown. And it’s no one’s fault but my own.