I am haunted by phantoms, ghosts of time past. Memories that no matter how hard I try I can’t seem to forget. I have tried working through them, running from them, banishing them, forgetting them… but no matter what I do they are still there. Always gnawing at the back of my mind, sitting and waiting for the wrong moment to come to the surface and dance upon my brain. Reminders of things I have lost, things that I have never again found. Things that I don’t want to find but can’t seem to stop looking for. I write down my memories and burn them into my soul; I can recall things that most would have forgotten within a month, a day, a second. I try to make them stop, to go away, but I can’t. I have been through counseling to work through them, I have tried to let them go but these memories won’t leave. They are like mini boomerangs, the harder I throw them the faster they come back. I duck the return but they have a way of finding me and smacking me in the forehead. I sit here today, drowning in my thoughts. Maybe it is the loneliness that invites them back. Usually I keep myself so busy that all my memories are quick to disappear, they only come to me in the night when I sleep. Sometimes I hate sleep, I am too vulnerable during those hours before the sun comes to wake me. Then there are days like today when I am even more vulnerable, my defenses drop and every ache that I thought had gone away comes back to me. Magnified one hundred percent, until all I want to do is lie in bed and sleep the day away, but I can’t because if I do then they will invade my dreams. I can’t seem to get away on days like this. You would think that with all the time that has passed, and the joys I have experienced I wouldn’t think the thoughts that I do. I wouldn’t miss the old and I could be content with what I have. What I have is so much better, I have grown from a stupid little child into a woman who has what she needs and knows how to get what she wants. I have lost most of my insecurities and moved beyond the hill that I used to live on, I now reside in the clouds, far above all the pain. Out of reach from the wanting, waiting, wishing. I can see it all below me but I float above it all until it looks so little in comparison to everything else. A little ant of a thought and then it gets bigger, and bigger. It comes to sit next to me and I can’t push it away. It is as if these thoughts have grown wings as big as mine and have caught up with me. I keep thinking each time is the last time it will haunt me but then when I least expect it, it comes back again. I feel as though I am betraying my future by allowing the memories of my past to consume me so. As if I am hurting the very fabric that binds my future to me. Is there something in me that is missing? That one part of us, that makes us able to forget? I walk around looking for a way to fill the cracks in me but no matter what I do I think that there is one that may never be filled. They say that with time all wounds heal, then why hasn’t this one gone away yet? Why does my phantom still follow me? Why does it invade my mind at the most inopportune times? How is it that this one thing has become part of me when all of the other experiences in my life have been easier to let go of. Most of that have cut me deeper then this, yet I have been able to heal it. This memory though... it has consumed me, burned me, but never left me. It is as if I live with a tumor that grows inside of me, no amount of radiation has been able to kill it. I try to cut it out and it just comes back. Not a day goes by when I don’t know that it is there inside of me. All my memories have helped to shape me, ruin me, made me grow. There are many things that I wish had never happened to me, but they have and I have learned to live beyond them. I have used them to my benefit but some have been mini downfalls for me. I wonder what it would be like to live a normal life, away from the constant sadness and longing. I wonder what it would be like to be the girl that was wanted instead of the one that is always tossed to the side. I am a broken woman, until I heal this I should be locked away inside myself. I am Afraid to let anything touch me. Anything near me, anything hurt me. One thing at a time, one pain, one memory until they have all dissolved into nothing. Sometimes I feel like I am living two lives. The one inside myself and the one outside of myself. There is a battle going on as to which one should win but now and then the lines blur, I can't contain the worlds and keep them where they belong and they mesh together. In one world I am happy, I am content, I am in love with a wonderful man. I have a great job, a good family... But when the lines blur, I don't know if I should run and hide behind the dark shadows that lie in wait for me. In my other world I am lonely, unloved, unwanted, broken, tainted. I run from everything in fear that I may come off as being too stupid, too ugly, and too fat. I fear not being good enough, not being enough of anything really. I am afraid that I am constantly being judged and afraid to make any moves because of it. All confidence is lost and I just stand there naked. Afraid that every little mark on me shines and the only thing people can do is pity me. I don't want that so I find a hole and hide inside of it. It is when these two worlds cross when I have the real problems. I want to be alone, I want to be loved. I want to be invisible yet I want to be seen. I want to be held but I don't want to be touched. I am a walking contradiction in myself, and can’t seem to separate the two. I walk away and at the same time want to be chased, I don’t want to be left alone in my own little hell yet I don’t stop myself from hiding deeper and deeper in it. And then I smile my false little smile, and tell people what they want to hear. I become numb and the cold comes again. I show them what they want to see, and wait for something to pull me out again. The weird bit is that I am not depressed I am just… here. I just exist and nothing more. I become a hallow shell; I don’t really feel anything. Not happiness, not sadness. I just become a robot in a human’s world. I do what I have to do, and just keep moving because I know that I will get back to where I want to be but this life is lonely. Partially created by myself, partially created by others. My insecurities make me unreachable, yet my longing makes me vulnerable.

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