A Year Later

So a year ago i wrote a rather angry piece:

https://amiagrownupyet.com/2019/03/21/i-will-find-a-way-lucy-lyness/

It was suggested i write an update a year later. So here you go.

Occasionally upon waking

The demons stir, their claws reaching for sunlight

Momentarily I freeze, awaiting their grip

But when I roll over and see the splayed hair of the man I love contrasted against his pale skin

Their hushed, angry whispers disapte, retreating back to their dens.

Some days they find a hold, their grasp choking,

Their familiar sting like a sweet home coming to a masochistic brain

And I want to scream and gouge out my eyes and shred the brain tissue to dust

But reassuring words from my benevolent love wash over the pain, like a soothing balm, reducing their grip and calming the turbulent seas, and these days grow fewer with farther between.

I rarely think now of the girl I once was, no sense in mourning the long gone, the potential, the ifs and maybes. She is never coming back, she is a myth.

Who can say if she ever had hopes and dreams, I don’t remember after so many years of not having any other than the simultaneous wish to survive and die

But I feel the dreams, the ardent hopes returning, sizzling at the base of my skull, waiting to strike. Waiting for a cue that it is safe to come out.

Occasionally I catch a glimpse of that girl, her shadowy visage reflected back at me in the windows of the cars and shops as I walk past, but like a ghost, she is always in the peripheries, too scared to reveal herself and converse.

As I walk, my armour spreads all around me, it’s sharp, poisonous barbs pulsating a deep orange,

A warning to any man who dare try to approach me,

But when I arrive home and see the smile of the man I love reach his eyes, the barbs retract to spiky stubble on my skin.

I try not to bristle him with them, as I seek his arms and lay my head on his chest.

On lucky nights the stubble falls off, my skin grows smooth and soft against his, and a warm glow makes me eyes prickle with tears.

Melancholy is my best friend, along with ptsd despair, but these days we only converse through messenger. They appreciate I have stuff going on.