what it feels like

I felt bad today, the sun peeked through my curtains and I just had to pull the covers over my eyes.  You ever wake up and it still hurts?  And you have people telling you get over it, don't waste your energy, why do you still care?  Because I'm human and I'm allowed however much time it takes me to do it on my own.  Who wants to be cuddled up in the covers with tears painted on their cheeks in the shape of tiny fingers trying to wash them away? No one.  No ones asks to be sad, to be betrayed, to be lonely.  No one asks to be forgotten.


I even tried to tell myself that I wasn't feeling bad, that my mind was playing tricks on me.  My soul felt like an empty refrigerator that I kept walking back to hoping that if I opened it enough, it would be full again.  But your body doesn't care what you tell yourself.  My bones ached his name this morning and my knuckles cracked in a way that sounded like my heart was breaking.  I wanted to cry but my body didn't care what I told myself.  My legs were heavy as if this journey wasn't long enough, as if I wasn't strong enough.  I wanted to ask him if she, if they, were so good, why'd you keep calling me?  Why'd you keep kissing me?  Why'd you keep doing all these things to make me feel good if leaving me didn't make you feel good?


The reason I tell my story is because I don't want anybody else telling it.  I don't want anybody else messing up how I felt, where I went, who I loved and what I learned.  I may scream, I may cry, I may laugh, I may even kill myself trying to explain this life I live but it's mine.  Those are my emotions, never to be defended or described by anyone else but me.  I owe them that much.  When I'm alone and weary or when I'm alone and happy, it's just me and my emotions either kicking the breeze or shielding ourselves from the sparkling sun.


I own these emotions and they are sacred like a grandmother's pearls, like a girl's first time, like your baby's first tooth.  I gave life to these emotions that peel off of the pages of dictionaries and demand that someone feel something for making someone else feel like nothing.


It's not that I still love him.  It's more so that I feel like he didn't love me.