Afraid

I deal with fear nearly every single moment that I'm awake.  My past has left me a very fearful present.

I am also afraid and that feels very different.  To me, being afraid is the current not directly tied to my past. 

Just a side effect.

Afraid of being fragile.  Afraid of being pitied.  Afraid of being angry.  Afraid of being mean.  Afraid of losing my job.  Afraid of being abandoned.  Afraid of losing everything because I can never grip it tight enough.

I try to wrap my arms around Afraid because I cannot hold it all in my hands.  But then a tremor wiggles through my hand.  And then it works its way up my arm.  My shoulder shudders.  My head twitches.  The other shoulders rolls as my other hand is paralyzed.  I am limp and worthless to contain Afraid.

Afraid tells me that I'm doing this all wrong.  That I'm not healing right.  Good enough.  Fast enough. 

I am afraid of Afraid.

Broken

It happened again.  A complete and total meltdown in public.  Not even two weeks after the first occurrence.

Short of stuffing cotton in my nose; I don't know how to stop panicking at the first smell of a certain green bottle with a little gold horse on the front.

I tell myself it's not him.  I tell myself that I'm safe.  I tell myself to take deep breaths.  I touch something to remind my senses where I am.

Screaming.  Yelling.  Tears.  Sobs.  Strange and worried looks.

It's fucking embarrassing to be this broken.  Of course it's all his fault.  But he is not the one coming unglued in all the broken places.  So that must mean that it's my fault that I can't get just over it all.

This is a really good reason why you shouldn't fuck your daughter.