I Wish You Met Me Before I Was Broken

I have become numb. Numb to feeling sadness. Numb to feeling pain. Numb to feeling love. Numb to feeling.

You ask me to give you something, but I have nothing left in me to give. You can’t pour out of an empty cup.

I wish you met me before I was broken. Maybe even a few storms ago. I think you would’ve liked me then. I was full of positivity and hope. I saw the world and the people that live in it with kind eyes. I was open to the prospect of love. I was happy.

But life has a way of hitting you where it hurts. Not once or twice; over and over again. I promise you I’ve been trying to fight back, but there’s only so many punches I can take. The prospect of what this could become is not one of them.

I wish I could explain to you what living like this feels like, because it’s debilitating. And the worst part is that there’s nothing that either of us can do about it.

I know you think I’m pessimistic and hopeless. But I promise you that there’s a valid reason why I am the way that I am. My life hasn’t been easy, and wearing a mask has been suffocating.

I’m tired of pretending to be a more refined version of myself. I’m tired of pretending that I’m strong. I want to actually be strong. I want to be able to show you who I really am, and what has become of my weaknesses. But I’m not ready.

I wish you could’ve lived through some of these storms with me. Maybe then you’d understand. But you can’t. You can only see the aftermath. And I’m telling you now, you can’t build a foundation out of rubble.