A Letter From a Fellow Soldier

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The thought process I go through every day. Figured I'd externalize it. Don't feel like you have to read this. It's just therapy for me.
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Everyone's saying how proud they are of me. That I'm making the "hard choices". I'm making the "right choices". I'm doing and saying the things that crush my soul but I know are what's for the "greater good". These decisions that are now mine to make because I'm an adult and I'm in control of my ultimate happiness and what's going to be good for me "in the end".

I don't disagree with any of that. I'm proud of myself too.

But.

There are seconds during the minutes. When I think no one is looking and I let my smile unhinge and float to the floor. I let the hurt seep back into my heart that lately feels like it's barely beating.

Because those choices are ripping me to shreds.

Those seconds in the day where I just want to scream "to hell with all of it" because I'm done. I don't want to pick the "right" choices. None of my choices feel right. All I do is hurt and hurt others and then continue to hurt.

The emotions cascading all over my eyeballs as they beat on the gates of my mind and I fight back the sobs ready to crash out of my lungs. And when I give in and finally accept them...

Then everything is numb. There's no color. Just shapes and blobs of varying grays and I can't even cry. There's just an empty space where my heart was dined on and now all that's left is a rib cage with no prisoner.

People whispering and commenting on how "tired" I look.

No. I'm not tired. I'm dead.

I live and battle the monsters in my mind from sun-up until I'm blood-soaked and drained and something swings that final blow. Then I die. And I'm dead until I wake up again. Every day.

Live, Fight, Die, Repeat.

Every "right choice" another battle I win. Another monster slain. Another demon vanquished. Until the damage is done and I'm too "tired" to fight the next one. And I give in, give up, give out, in any direction my innards can be spilled.

And no one can save me. Nobody can help.

I live alone. I fight alone. I die alone. I pick up my shattered pieces alone. I put myself back together every day alone.

And everybody else does the same. We're all in our own wars. So I'm not asking for pity. I just want to be understood.

I make the right choices because I have to and it kills me a little every day no matter how proud of myself I am. No matter if it'll make me happy in the end.

I know I will get what's owed to me. I know I actually will get my happy ever after once I fight all the villains that need to be killed.

But in the meantime.

There are seconds in between the minutes.

Where I die.

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