I Reach For Nothing

I don’t want to paint.

I don’t want to dance.

I don’t want to sit in a bath pretending the sweaty stillness will save me.

Everything feels wrong tonight.

My art waits for me like an accusation.

Canvases calling.

Brushes clean.

I have no excuse,

Except that I am empty in a way my own creative hands can't touch.

I want someone here.

I want a body in the room.

I want weight on the other side of the bed.

But the people who want me aren't healed.

And the people I want, disappear.

Everyone is a mirror.

Again.

Patterns I want to part ways.

Wanting what won’t stay.

Being bored by what would.

I try not to think about the good.

I’ve read enough books - I know better.

Think good thoughts.

Don’t manifest the wrong future.

But what if that’s bullshit?

What if I’m just lonely and honest and tired of pretending I’m not?

“What’s meant for me won’t miss me,” I mutter, not believing it,

just needing something to hold onto.

I could write a song.

There’s no one to hear it.

I’m sick of making beauty disappear into silence.

Love feels fictional tonight.

Like something only others are allowed to touch.

How did I end up here, and why?

I know how.

I just don’t want to say it out loud.

The divorce carved shame into me.

Not regret, shame.

Shame for breaking a family.

Shame for choosing myself when I was supposed to sacrifice.

Shame for looking into four freckled faces and walking away anyway.

I stayed longer than I should have because of them.

And I left because of them too.

That contradiction still lives in my bones.

I don’t regret leaving.

I regret how much it cost.

Then I chose love again.

Real love.

The dangerous kind.

The kind that rewires you.

The kind people stare at and say they want.

We made each other better.

That part is true.

And then he turned on me.

No warning.

No gentle ending.

Just ice in his veins where warmth once lived.

It still doesn’t make sense.

I don’t think it ever will.

We did the therapy.

We had the friends.

We built the life.

He was a father,

And then he vanished.

They didn’t get a goodbye.

Neither did I.

That feels unforgivable most days.

Now I have silence that deafens me.

One week I am mother, anchor, universe.

The next week I am just a girl in a big quiet house, counting hours.

I am not depressed.

I am not spiraling.

I am not lost.

I am just alone.

And it’s different.

TV doesn’t work.

Distractions don’t stick.

I don’t want attention.

I don’t want noise.

I don’t want comfort.

I want truth.

At night, when I light the fire, I let it take me apart.

I burn it all down to what can’t lie.

And I see now, why people stay in things that hurt.

Pain is easier than standing naked in nothing.

Nothing is harder than nothing.

Nothing asks you to sit with yourself without anesthesia.

Nothing strips you of illusion.

I hear the clock.

The fountain.

My own breathing.

No apps.

No substances.

No hands reaching for me.

Just me.

This is the part no one can romanticize.

This is raw life. Unbuffered. Unwitnessed.

And I hate it.

And maybe - quietly - I’m being undone.

To be remade, redone, reborn.

I don’t reach for what doesn’t fit anymore.

I don’t numb.

I don’t beg.

I stay.

It is bitter.

I don’t know yet if it’s sweet.

But I know this:

I am not abandoning myself this time.