Battle scars

Sometimes you just need to do what hurts the most to stop the pain.

I was urgent this morning
feeling the tingling sensation
only felt when I think of you.
I knew it was my own doing
that didn't stop it this time
like it has so many times gone by.

I tried with all my might
to force you back into the place
that kept me safe from you
but you wouldn't stay there
and I kept opening the door
teasing you to come out.

And I knew it was my fault
that this time it was going to hurt more
and that it would probably kill me
but it had to be done right.
You know me,
forever pushing the limits of my own pain.

The trembling bones left behind
and the marks on my back from
all the whipping that I did to myself
seem self fulfilling to the onlooking eye
but not mine.
I knew it was necessary to bleed.

If no blood was shed in this war
and I was to walk out never being wounded
then I would have gone on pretending
and thinking that maybe tomorrow you would change
and that you would go from killing me
to being the one to save my life.

I couldn't afford that mistake again
and my loved ones wouldn't be there
to clean up the mess left in your absence
so this morning I decided to do whats fair to them
and throw my heart back in the ring
and ensure that I never woke to thoughts of you again.

Reviews

[C.T. Bailey]

" I kept opening the door
teasing you to come out."
Isn't this what we always do? We work so hard to put away the pain and dispatch the emnity from certain people...and then we "dance" with them. Flirting with the pain...like it were a caged animal...somehow we feel protected. And then that lion escapes and devours us.
I like the way you end this....in that...you actually ended it. That is your correct and only recourse. Well written, by someone who has been in touch with these emotions.
Todd