All The Truths I Cannot Tell You

I am staring from the inside of a glass jar,
Hands up, pressed against the glass.
Or is the glass pressing against me?
I am on the inside looking out.
I am stuck behind a barrier between the real world and everything that is going on within me.

I wish I could tell you everything that is going on.
I wish I could tell you why things have been so different lately.
I want to explain the reason why I have lost half the light behind my eyes.
And why my smile that used to be able to illuminate an entire room has suddenly grown so dim.

I wish I could tell you how I feel like I am living inside of a hurricane.
It’s either days filled with chaos or eerie moments of calm spent waiting for the next disaster to begin.
I feel like I am always stuck here just waiting to begin.
It’s like everything I have built over the past few years is being ripped from my hands but then dangled back in front of me, as if to say, “We do not care enough to keep you around, but here is what it could look like if we did.”

I have never been one to shy away from the truth.
As a child, I was always the one to ruin a surprise because if there is one thing I still cannot stand, it is keeping a secret from the people I care about.
Every day, I have to show up, and every day I have to lie to the family I have been blessed with over all of these years.
And every day, I hate myself a little more for not telling you all the truth.

I am too scared to make the next move.
Yet, I am too scared to stay so stagnant.
I am standing here, map in hand, looking for which way to go next.
But I keep turning my map, over and over again, and none of these paths seem to make any sense.
Each road is filled with danger, and I am having a hard time deciding if any of this is even worth it anymore.
Are these dreams even worth it anymore?
Was any of this ever even worth it?
Is it more of a risk to try something new?
Or am I risking it all by not abandoning ship while my head is still above the water?

I always wanted to leave before it got this bad.
But bad things do not happen on a schedule that works well for anyone.
Bad things happen exactly when you do not need them to.
No amount of planning could have saved you from any of this.
And the older you get, the more you truly begin to understand this fact.
You are not the bad things that happen to you, but it is up to you whether or not you let them take you down.

I am trying so hard not to let them take me down.
And I am tracing the word “S.O.S” on this glass, day in and day out, in hopes that someone might finally notice me.
But no one can read something that was never there in the first place.
You cannot tell the truth if you cannot use the words you need to tell it.

This is me telling you how sorry I am that it has to end like this.
This is me telling you how sorry I am that I cannot tell you the truth right now.
This is me hoping that you will forgive me for all of this.
This is me hoping that you will understand that there was nothing I could do to change their minds.

And this is me wishing that I could wake up from this nightmare already.