A LAMENT IN FRAGMENTS

The pieces of this glass container glimmer in the light. Prisms of color reflect so radiantly; I am blinded at certain angles.

I find myself on my hands and knees, gathering the remnants.

I use my bare fingers, exposing myself.

Inspecting each piece I find; I pray they are still salvageable.

Where do these fragments belong? Will I be able to find where everything fits? As I struggle to take all that has been shattered and make sense of it, I’m finding once the glass is broken, it really is hard to piece back together.

Nothing fits the same.

Nothing feels the same.

What once felt warm and inviting is now cold and biting.

The effort of putting everything back together, piece by piece, has exhausted me, drained me that I can’t even remember how it all once fit.

This glass container, once proudly placed in the center of my home and heart, guarded so many precious memories. I cry as I look down seeing an utter mess. So many beautiful moments that had been cradled are now shattered by the cruel actions and words of another.

It can’t only be my fault, as I am told.

As I weep and mourn for all the loss, it feels like death to me.

I sift through what looks like a million shards of puzzle pieces. I try to put them together, to find the perfect fit. But, you see, there is never again a perfect fit once the glass is broken.

It is never the same.

I cut my fingers.

My skin is raw.

I bleed.

The fragments echo reminders of all that once was - all the happiness and joy that I once held dear.

The glass once contained so much love. But now the small, misshapen slivers prick and burn.

Some pieces have even turned into piles of dust.

My trust had turned to dust.

My safety turned to dust.

The idea of my perfect life turned to dust, totally obliterated.

How many times have I ignored my pain? Ignored the blood trickling that stemmed from the ache in my heart and right out of my fingertips.

My stupid bleeding heart.

I press on.

I press on, hopeful that things will change - hopeful that I can put these pieces back together.

Isn’t that what we are taught to do? To fix what is broken instead of walking away from what now looks like discarded trash. It’s too easy to walk away – or so I’ve been told. But isn’t removing the thorn the only way to heal?

I once loved every bit of this glass container when it was whole. It beamed, radiant, thriving, hopeful. Now there are so many shards, pointed, cutting, stinging.

Do I patiently sit here, picking up every piece with tears and blood dripping? Or do I give into my slow exhaustion, allowing my inner coward to simply walk away?

At times, I want to do both, but I can’t.

If I stay and pick up every piece, I will just keep getting hurt.

As I pick up another piece, I relive the pain I felt as he spewed those nasty words at me. His spit glimmering on my face like the shards of glass before me: sharp, painful, wounding. And his dismissal burned like acid on my skin.

I told him to stop. That he was going to scar me beyond recognition.

To stop cutting me. I tell him I feel it all too deeply, I can’t breathe.

Every word.

Every bit of hate.

Every resentment rising like bitter stomach acid.

But he ignored me until the glass popped… and then shattered into the mess I am trying to clean up.

I told him I was going to end up hating him.

But he fluffed me off, blaming me for it all.

I’m overreacting he replied.

I am too sensitive he replied.

My feelings aren’t real he replied.

But I feel them, how can they not be real?

Is that what it feels like when you’re gaslit?

Am I a failure if I choose to walk away? Am I a hero if I choose to stay?

Or am I a failure if I stay and a hero if I walk away?

It’s all subjective.

I ask myself what the right thing is to do. Lives have been built around him and me. A little person depends on us to lead the way, to guide.

The problem lies in the fact that if the other person makes no effort to repair their part; if their fingers do not bleed alongside of yours as you both try to piece the shards back together; if they do not attempt to mend the deep wounds they helped create– then isn’t it all for nothing?

Because the disrespect, the selfishness, the emotional detachment will all come back if real change doesn’t happen. Then healing will never happen, and history is doomed to repeat.

If all this is true, then walking away becomes my battle cry for survival.

Joana Xipolitas is a writer living in North Carolina.