Numbing Waves

Young Girl

A pair of big brown eyes looked up at me.
A young girl not older than nine stood before me.
Her skin was tattered, old and worn.
She looked like she had been dragged along the sidewalk and then through the dirt.
Her arms with the fresh gaping scrapes
She earned while trying to escape.

I looked to my own arms.
Healed scars, nearly disappearing. 
Her scars.
Our scars.

I have poured myself out in front of my own feet and picked up what lay before me as if it were dirty clothes.
I have brushed the grime, the wet, sticky hair, and the pain off of my own face.
Out of her face.
She stitched the gaping holes in our soul with her shaky tiny hands.
We bandaged our heart when it leaked too much emotion.

Do you know how to save yourself when you're drowning?
How to be the one that pulls your airless lungs to the surface,
How to be the one that drags your own unconscious body to the shore?
We learned how.

She reached her shaking hand up to me,
Gently cupped me cheek,
And dove herself into my soul.
She must have been trying to read whatever I have become since our last meet.

I felt a warm thick liquid tickle down my face and I realize what I have allowed to happen.
Searing pain shot through my body as I watched my scars reopen to mimic her fresh wounds.  
I collapsed to my knees and she calmly followed in suit, her hand never once leaving my cheek.
Every cut, stab, and slice she'd hidden away tore through my own skin.
Our skin.
We knelt in the pool of our blooded pain.
She never smiled, her face read fear.

I should have never rekindled our flame.
Previously, I had only allowed myself to heal because I'd forgotten this little girl.
I'd abandoned her in the shadows to fend for herself.

I left her for dead.
I wish she was dead.

Now, I remember her agonizing pain.
The nights she nearly drowned in her own tears.
The hours she'd spent packing her bags to run away.
The pills and the food she had to make herself throw up.
The attempts she'd made to stop her heart.

Her days were filled with hours, filled with minutes, filled with seconds, filled with her wishing she was dead.

To remember her, is to allow myself to be her once again.
But how can I kill her without killing myself?
She is me.
We are one.
I will always be this little girl.
Although I cannot ever possibly love me,
I love her.
I hope she loves me enough for the both of us.

May 17, 2017