come thursday

and I began to realize what I could be in for if they actually came home.

I might be even more alone with them than I had been without them.

I'd be living with a son who could be taken away at the drop of a hat,

and with a woman I might never be able to share even the most inconsequential information with for fear she find some way to use it against me.

the original abuses would seem like a vacation compared to how it could be when they came back.

as I became more and more cognizant of these new possibilities, and more convinced that it was all my doing, I grew to hate myself more than I realized possible.

and seeing as I couldn't pinpoint when the trouble really started, I became unable to remember not hating myself.

I was still able to compartmentalize this enough to go to work, but everything I saw reminded me of it somehow.

everything I thought I believed was fading and stuttering like a bad radio signal.

if I was being destroyed, was I being destroyed in order to be remade, or just to be left that way forever?

I felt constantly on the verge of smashing everything within arm's reach but too tired to actually do it.

there's a thrumming numbness in my arms and legs and a hungry fullness in my abdomen.

the only time I feel physically close to normal is when I'm lying very still and holding my breath.

my lips and eyes seem to be vibrating but when I see my reflection, they're still.

it's paralyzing to wish you never met the only woman you ever really loved, indescribable to be nostalgic for the time before your child was born.

I can't trust my own mind anymore than I can trust her.

so, I wait.

wouldn't you?