Without Your Permission

Did you consider the vast, deep, and ENDLESS repercussions that others would be forced to face when you left?

What you don't seem to know is that I feel your pain. I feel your pain so deeply. Do you KNOW that? Can you HEAR me?! Unlike your pain - which you choked out, extinguished, so conveniently for yourself - mine is endless. I'd have the courage to end things for myself - but I'd never have the courage to do unto others what you did unto me, your mom, your stepdad, your brothers, your friends. Did you not know that you were loved? Did I not tell you that enough? Did I not chase you enough? What would have been enough? Fuck depression, PTSD, anxiety, anger - I'm so tired of learning and understanding your goddam choice. I'm so tired of not having space in my mind to make my own choices. You've taken up far too much space for far too long.

Yet...

Here I am - traumatized.

Here I am - wandering. For years. For over a fucking decade. I am tired. Very fucking goddam tired of being tethered to your choice.

Here I am - finding the meaning and the bright spots in this deep dark hole of absolute nothingness - the bottomless pit of black, cold, fear, sharp, stinging, panic.

Do you know how hard it is to persist? No. No, you really have no fucking clue. You're blissfully extinguished.

With my age comes more wisdom, more clarity. And in that clarity, I can find strength in symbolism. I can find strength in persistence. I can find strength in strategy. I can find strength in independence - the very fucking thing I am so angry at having to so consistently and tirelessly embrace. I don't want to hug independence. I don't want to make friends with it. I don't want to admire it or appreciate it. I'm fucking tired of doing that. Where is MY support? Where is MY savior? Where is MY rescuer? Where is MY sweet relief? When do I get to choke into nothingness? I'm weak, packed full of pills and drowning on the goddam curb - saturated with salty tears and memories of the ocean.... and you.

I am Alice, falling, endlessly, down the rabbit burrow. I am the astronaut, sucked into the black hole. I am the miner, digging tirelessly into the darkness.

Well you know what? Fuck this. You're not going to continue holding me hostage. I gave you all the power and I'm taking it back. I'm not going to be the victim here anymore. I can break free of that and I don't need your goddam permission. You certainly didn't get mine.

Just like you choked - cutting off the oxygen from your perfectly healthy lungs, stopping your heart, fading red to purple and blue - I can fight back. I can INJECT myself with life instead of laying in the stillness of your goddam airless indigo corpse. I don't have to sit alongside you, metaphorically watching over your lifeless body as if I have nothing else to do with the rest of my own damn life.

I AM STILL BREATHING. I am pink and warm and anxious - the air comes in, it goes out - I haven't kinked up the hose or cut off the supply. I've made a different choice.

Here's a question: Is it honorable for me to sit next to your dead soul, or is it pathetic?

My thoughts on this have shifted. I am sarcopenic, emotionally. Fried out. Void. Empty. Malnourished. I can no longer accommodate you and your choice. I hear my backbone screaming. I feel my nerves - on fire. It is time for me to leave you to rest in your own choice. I can't fix it. I can't undo it. I can't paint it in pretty pinks and vibrant reds. And I'm not laying in the darkness with you anymore. I don't have more time to waste. I haven't even had 12 years - but you stole it, whether you meant to or not. Repercussions. I don't have any space left inside me to be your victim.

The last thing you told me before your choice was that I would be okay. That everything would be okay. I've been rattled and furious at those words for so many fucking years. Unwarranted. You know what? You were right... but only on one of those things.

Everything is not okay.

But, I am not everything.

Especially, I am not you.

I am not your choice.

I am not your victim.

And I am going to be okay.

Here I am: Moving on. Without your permission.