Opening my Eyes

I'm bleeding. As much as this hurts, you'd think this was a physical wound just as it is an emotional one. I keep opening my eyes and expecting to see a gaping wound in my chest that looks as if someone just reached in and grabbed a part of me. I feel like bits and pieces of me are falling off, leaving hollow parts that I once thought were truly part of me. 27 years of living in this world and I never thought I would experience this kind of pain. That I was promised as a child that it would never happen to the two people who made up my world. A foolish dream in the scheme of things, but a dream I believed in.

There was nothing I could have done differently. Nothing I could have said to make you believe in anything we said to you. Every trip, every job, wherever you went, I prayed for my father to come home safe. I missed you every day you were gone, and wanted only to know you were ok and that you knew I loved you. I gave you space when I felt like reaching out to hold your hand, because you weren't as comfortable doing it as mom so effortlessly did. Simple things like hugging and other innocent touches of affection were proceeded with caution, because even though it was done , parental affection, I never knew when it would be turned away because I felt you weren't comfortable with it.

Future events I believe would happen are now dust, faded and gone as if they were never supposed to be an idea in the first place. Did him saying I love you mean anything? Did anything that was said to me mean he cared? Was I just another person on a list that needed to be left behind after all that happened? I’ve never understood and I don’t think I ever will. Part of me wishes I could move forward easily, but a bigger part just yearns for what will never be again.

The person I believed would always be there, the man I was supposed to look towards for advice for how someone is supposed to treat a woman, has become untrustworthy. There is confusion, frustration, anger, agony, sadness, emotions I only expected to feel on the day you left this world. You've left in a different way, but it's just as if you had died. In a way, you have. The man I thought was someone I could trust and admired has died, and maybe that is for the best. Because this stranger won't ever have any expectations of love and support from his blood children.

The confusing part is you made it seem like you wanted to still be here, but all the actions you have made so far say differently. It only makes me more confused that this stranger is going back and forth on what they say and do. What you truly want I'll never know, who you truly are I'll never see, because even though I was being true to myself and being selfless in loving you unconditionally, you were lying and thinking of not being free. I hope you find the happiness you believed you could never find with any of us. I hope whoever is now beside you is seeing the actual you. I hope to God if you bring more of your children into this world, you treat them better and be there for them the way you needed to be for my siblings and me.

The part of me that loved you unconditionally is dying slowly and however long it will be to complete, it will still hurt that betrayal is what you wanted to leave with me. All I'm hoping for is the end of this misery.