To you who know

A letter,
 to you who know:

I know, 
you know,
and I know you know,
and you know I know you know.
At this point
it does not matter to me
how you know
or why,
so don't state it
because,
you don't need to.
Just walk with me
and understand
that my right now

is like this:
it is dabbed in fog,

composed of all the black

and white

heartbreak.
It is dark,
and I am tired.

But I'm trying,
please believe me.

I'm trying to reclaim my life,
fight for my identity,
capture the light,
and take back what was stolen.

But I'm fighting a battle
that in many ways,
I have already lost.
I often meet

crippling self-disappointment

that demands to be experienced,
without an invitation, 
in more ways than one
mind you-
echoing the memory
to replay and rewind.

Why is so much of healing

remembering?

I know it.
There is shame 
in the lack of movement,

the absence of screams,

the voided fight,
the prevented memory.

It's like,
an unbalanced magnet
pulling instability
across its charges,

poisoning autumns,

toxic to what was.
Inverse to irritable,
and retrograde to frustration.

What you can know is this:
I am fighting ghosts 

and slammed doors

and far worse-- 

the ones left open
on purpose.

Gently it calls 

every failure by name,
and gives it bones.
Through every unspoken thought,

past each wavering hesitance,

each immortal glance that
we tried to kill
and told ourselves was dead.
If I forget,
it's still there.
It's still alive.

I am desperate
for some mask

like consistency

or value

or community
or substance,

because sometimes

to be numb

somehow 
takes everything in you
when you've already been robbed dry

So stop,
now, please,
I beg.
Stop celebrating,
quit it with your playbook.
Be patient in my lament
for my disgrace.
Because my grief
is not
your trophy
or your soapbox
or your muse.

I AM SORRY
and don't say it isn't my fault,
because we both know
that's not the whole truth.

What is true, is that
I don't want the world

and all of its cruelty

to make me jaded

and hard,

but sometimes

I fear 
that it is already
too late.