Disrupt

I tumble down the stairs, weeks full of laundry in enormous blue IKEA bags on my shoulders. I step blinking into the sleeting avenue, a strange mild day with a midwinter dialect. All your anxious tics bleed out of you in rivulets toward the gutter, it's a cruel reminder of 30 years worth of defense mechanisms. Your turrets are so sharp, your fortress wall so many feet deep, it's a wonder sunlight ever gets anywhere near you. Your pallid skin raises an eyebrow at the sentiment. 

We ran on steam for so many months and now the steam has run out of us. She returns from her family yelling and you no longer remember how to say no, realize you always forget to say no when you need it most, realize under pressure you revert to crumbling brickwork and shards of stained glass in your eyes. I return from the laundromat with that warm, clean smell and surely one day this will all be behind us, will it not? Surely one day we can remember who we were, remember the bone in our backs, surely one day again I will be happy, right?

Tell me we will be happy again. 

Tell me we will not bleed forever.