In retrospect, my depression was a reflection of my circumstances.
They say the state of a woman depends on the state of her man. Women are mirrors, a man’s true reflection.
He poisoned the well and asked me why I stopped drinking. I sipped and he blamed me for not indulging.
He got angry at me for my toxicology report as if he wasn’t the source of what was slowly killing me.
Filled with poison, I stumbled my way down the cobblestone.
Billboards full of pretty photos and “I love yous.” All distractions from the wear and tear on my shoes.
A neon yellow vest lay resting over a construction cone. The price tag still attached, he must be putting up a sign for the construction zone.
How many times do you allow yourself to go down the same broken road?
I still don’t know.
Not a man in sight – even when he was there. Asking for directions just to get a blank stare.
The delirium took over once I knew I had to exit. Left became right and right became left. And the compass kept re-scrambling with each step.
The stitching of my most favorite love that ran pervasively intertwined in my veins quickly began feeling like barbed wire:
Internal bleeding in staying still
Excruciating to move
Incomprehensible to remove
Holistically punctured from head to toe, head and heart, body and soul.
My body did what it knows best in order to keep me alive. It became a glass shell that I became trapped inside.
It was the only way I was going to survive. I think I spent months in there, but I’m not really certain the amount of time.
Heartbreak induced comatose is harder to diagnose. It’s one of those invisible illnesses, so no one truly knows.
I get it. It can be hard to understand things you can’t see. But seeing doesn’t change the fact that it happened to me.
It doesn’t change the fact that I was slowly dying. Or the fact that he labeled my exit as self-inflicting.
As if what was ahead of the cobblestone wasn’t more neglect, more poison, more beautiful billboards to distract me from my shoes.
Blame and games and secret double agents. Flames and shame and mistakes, I made them.
They were all choices, not decisions. The difference…I digress. I came out on the other side of the poison, the barbed wire, the mess.
My defenseless exit is my only regret.
– MM
