Strength

Sometimes…

Words, faces, moments, seconds; flurries of consciousness shake me from my head. Leaving streaks on the conscious mirror of my present, I try desperately to wipe away the evidence. My attempts only serve to further mar the unadulterated effervescence of the memories. It's not a subtle thing, trying to forget. it doesn't happen in quiet moments. it is not a theif, skilled in its craft. Sure, the desire is silent. It lives quietly and dangerously in all of us.
Waiting until we are most vulnerable until it moves. But no, the act itself is loud. It is a smashing, wrenching, banging noise that chokes the serenity and innocence of quiet moments until they pass. It does not go unnoticed by those closest us, our smiles only serve as wounds, battle scars, that we sheepishly reveal to our friends in the name of clandestine fear. We are not clever. We are not whole. The things we do to hurt ourselves, without even knowing why we do them, they are what's in control. They are normalcy, they are the banal thrashing that lulls us to sleep until we can believe that we are in control again. Forgetting is a valuable thing, and we pay for it with a heavy cost. We are the judas iscariots to our own happiness, and we gladly pay the price without hesitation. Fixing ourselves is never our goal, LIVING with ourselves is all we can afford. Short-term fixes and duct-tape bandages are what we wrap around hemorrhaging wounds. We laugh at weakness because we fear it. We smile and nod while we lay cripple and hopeless. We are pathetic, and too damned proud to admit it. Sometimes we break down, and often times we regret those moments of lucid fear. Telling ourselves that we are too strong to be this weak. But we are this weak, and the only strength that comes from being weak, is the strength to admit that we are scared, lonely, and sad. Therein lies the truest form of unpopular honesty that we will ever achieve. Therein lies strength.