Harmed

Hi.

There are many kinds of hurt. There's the physical kind - the boo-boos, the cuts and scraps, the accidents, the cancerous, the inflicted - those that register as bodily damage. There is another category, the emotional.

To quantify these, well, you'd have to be an expert. Or, you could experience them all. And somehow as time goes, I seem to be racking up quite a repertoire.

It started with the simple things, like injured pride, teenage angst. The hurt when disappointing parental expectation, and then the hurt after the lectures or scoldings. There was hurt when I fought with my brother, or the hurt that easily turns to anger when taunted.

Then, there was the lonely hurt from the realization that the I had friends did not exist after school bell rang at 3pm. There was the hurt from the repeating cycles of false friendships. And once I thought I found some legitimate ones, the hurt by the betrayals of a few.

And so the lesson was relearned and reinforced: build up barricades, so that hurt of the vulnerable would never be repeated.

So hurt was avoided. If there was a cause for a new source, it was removed or it was used to strengthen the protection. Apathy was my mantle.

Yet the inevitable happened, and barriers once erected were cracking open.

In doing so, I found people that were truly close - not falsely so as I had been led on before. Along the way, I learned how the lack of recognition can hurt. How the hard work you have spent can be taken for granted, so that in the end, all that is left is hurt.

There is the hurt of lost opportunities, tempered by the twists of fate that brought others.

There was but one hurt I knew that could strike no matter what armor.

The hurt that makes it rain, that is uncontrolled when released - the hurt leaves me feeling so alone. It's the hurt that must be forgotten, must be thrown out, lest it reek havoc on mind and body, but in forgetting it leaves behind a hollow body. No barriers can stop this hurt.

I have found a mutation of such hurt. It is a hurt that makes my chest ache. A hurt whose presence is only known by the arrid landscape that is left behind. It's the hurt that urges me to fix something to do something to get rid of it. But it's already been done, it's already gone. I am left trying to clean the remains. It's like finally I understand written words, only because of having experienced it myself.

It is my instinct to withdraw, protect, and seal. Was I not prepared enough? Does this mean there will be more? Did I leave myself open to this onslaught? I should step away - it seems as though I'm not ready for that yet. I see a fissure I cannot mend. Will it break this bond apart? I hope not. I couldn't lose it, there are so few of them as it is. I cannot lose it.

We've called a ceasefire. We determine it for another day. Who knows how long it will take to fix the walls, to rebuild the reinforcements, to redraft the defense plans. Who knows if I can repair this on my own, 'cuz right now I doubt. Who knows.

There is the feeling that something has come to an end. It'll be different from now on. Hurt makes you change. The question is, will it be for the better?


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7dYGX9yqJAg