Everyone lies. People upon people pass us by, fake smiles plastered upon their lips, a reassertion of their so-called happiness as they walk down the rain-spattered streets. Lying is as natural in humans as it is to breathe.
So why am I constantly paralyzed by my secrets? Why am I haunted by the constant weight of the extent of my depression. There is not a single night that passes that I could not feel the cold claws of guilt eat me up. The air turns to fire in my lungs, suffocating me, burning out the life from right inside. The hands that hold me near and dear turn into unyielding steel– a constant reminder of the biggest mistakes I’ve made in my life. The hate festers, deep, undetected, only felt by me. You see, I love my husband, but I Hate him. I hate him for what I’ve become– what he and I turned my body into– for loving him too much. I never thought that love could destroy you; but our love, the kind that burns white-hot and luminescent, almost too beautiful and precious to stow away, is the most dangerous kind of love. It consumes you until there is nothing left within you, the fire igniting all the air from the inside, taking out oxygen and life until your inner spark gets smothered out by the darkness, and the guilt. My mother warned me about love like this. I guess I should have listened, but hindsight is 50/50.
He made me do things– things I never would have done if I never loved him. Really it was my choice, I made the decision myself, I acted out of love. But I can’t stop hating him for making me love him like this. To a point where life becomes paralyzed until he comes into the picture once more. I hate him for everything he’s taken from me. I hate him for putting me into this jail- this suffocating abyss of nothingness and empty promises. Because he thinks that if he spoils me enough, if he loves me enough.. I’ll be unbroken once more. He thinks that if he loves me enough, I wont want to die anymore.
But I do. Always. Every day. Every moment. Every minute. The air in my lungs lacks the life it once held. Every breath I take feels like sand. I have no purpose, no reason to remain. Every day that I “survive” is a maelstrom inside my soul that my stupid husband is too blind to see. If I keep smiling, he keeps smiling. He wants me to always be happy, so I pretend. Because I love him. And I hate him for it. For the constant lies. For having to be okay, when I’m not and never will be. So I keep lying.
But one of these days, the lies will stop. I’ll be brave enough to set myself free.
One of these days.