Stress paralysis, so exhausted at rest. No break from the silence. Fight and flight without guidance. Stuck in a moment of endlessness. Purgatory for the restless. Frozen in time with no cure, time ticks by as you endure, minutes become hours of torture.

It's Saturday night and I'm folding laundry, doing dishes, putting leftovers away and turning on night lights. I sing the usual bed time songs, place the special stuffed animal in its place, and make sure everyone has what they need for sweet dreams. I don't mind that this is how I spend my Saturday nights. Where I'm at in life now, I prefer it over any other option. But I didn't know I was going to have to do it alone.

I sift through the debris searching for me,

shattered pieces and remains of who I used to be,

crying out in pain when I reach too deep,

while you sit and watch me bleed.

1 moment can turn fourteen years into insignificant seconds.

2 hearts unravel that were once intertwined.

3 words that were forever promised become lies.

4 lives destroyed in the blink of an eye.

I'm treading waters I was never meant to swim in.

Going against the current and crying out "why am I sinking?"

Submerged, wave after wave and barely breathing.

I reach for you, and I apologize for drowning.

The feeling of defeat weighing me down again.

I never even saw it was you who pulled me under,

Keeping me immersed in your ocean of lies and making me wonder,

Was it ever love or something other?

Today is a hard day.

The gravity of reality pushes against me like a heavy weight. I move through each moment slowly. Feeling like any second the world will cave.

The sky has already fallen but the sun keeps rising.

Night to day.

The pain is too real to keep living this way.

Your tongue torments me as it twists my mind in your sick games. Slathering up more lies so you can get your way. Salivating at the aroma of my slow decay. Revealing your fangs so you get final say. Cold blooded and heartless in every way.

My wife of 11 years is leaving me for a younger woman and it hurts too much. I don't want to keep going. But I can't give up, my children need me here. This lie we called love, she has damaged me beyond repair. My heart hurts so much and she doesn't care.

How do I rebuild myself after the one I vowed to picked me apart piece by piece? Devouring me slowly to meet her own needs? Half my life sentenced to her greed. And when I have nothing left to give she decides to leave. Already climbing in bed with the next one, to feed.

While I'm left to clean up the shattered bits of me. How do I keep going? How did I let this happen? How could I have been so blind?

I'm left looking for a reflection that once was mine.

Writing how I feel on the prose because my brokenness always finds its rhyme.

Strong as steel they say. Eleven years, marks the anniversary of a marriage gone astray. Vows recited and promises made of everlasting love. Knowing that in time it would never be enough. Tethered together by strands of fibers that were already frayed. I said I do and I meant it ready to take it to my grave. Now you hold the shovel so you can walk away. After everything I gave you, hoping you would stay. I was too blinded by your greed that I couldnt even see, all along you were the only one burying me.

I write to make sense of it all. Letters pour from my mind like rain from the clouds, forming into words like puddles on the ground, filling page after page. Emotions crashing down like wave after wave.

I write to release it all. The tears that never seem to fall. A note that is genuine and raw. To say goodbye like a final call.

I write to remind me of it all. The memories that shaped me into who I am. The moments that broke me but helped teach me to stand.

I write because it's all I have. In love, in sorrow, in grief and in joy. Writing captures these moments and fills in each void. Organizing the noise. My symphony of choice.