Under the grand illusions of elation that seems to pour out of me, lies the experience of one very complex, and emotional woman. My imperfections are dominant and many. It always seems that no matter how intense my daily effort is, failure is often, and always, an option.

Within the scope of my two very capable and completely fallible of hands, lies a devastation that seems to only rear its ugly head occasionally...perhaps that is because I can only handle it on rare occasions.

I drove for two hours. Circling this giant city that I live in, hoping, praying, screaming, wanting this ugliness that is in me, that is me to go away. Eventually, my tired and weary eyes faltered, and I decided it would be best if I figured out a way to show my face, back at home.

I am wounded and sore. I am disgusted and embarrassed by myself. I am in loathing.

My tiny little heart has a tin cup that it's banging against the bones of my rib cage.

It always seems like the circumstances play out so that I get to experience hell on earth, and then meet some lonely, broken creature, who is where I was at some earlier point in life, and then I get this hell bent, damned frustrating, insane yellow brick road to compassion that I have to pour out on them whether I want to or not. And the ugliness of the entire affair is that life is so freaking messy and complicated and fantastic and hard, and how do you sit still on the sidelines while a perfectly wonderful human being stands super glued to their life of misery? Damn it things could be so different than they are.

Here I sit pondering all of my inabilities...all of my flaws that are flashing as bright as the sun in my face. I know who I am not. I know who I so desperately wish I could be. I wish I could bend myself, and break myself, so as to fulfill the status quo of what people think I should be. Truth is, I don't know how to remove the mar from my marrow. I don't know how to undo the blood from my veins. Where is the liberty in this? Nowhere to be found. No place to be seen.

I don't even think you understand. The depravity of my mind. I don't think you know the pressure that your damaged heart has placed on me. I am weary. I am drained.

It's so easy to pour out the "it's not fair's" all over the whole freaking world. I know that this darkness that washed over me today will stick around for a while and eventually fade away. That seems to be how the Boss likes the play the cards at His table. I suffer...alone. Always with the alone-ness. It's strange to me how comfort finds no way to my soul. Does no one in the world care enough to penetrate the pressure cooker that is my existence? Does no one see beyond their perception of this illusion?

Why do so many have the notion that the strong never fall? Why are we all either damsels or knights? Is there no in between? Can knights sometimes be damsels, and damsels sometimes be nights? Or rather can I just be me, and can you see through your own freaking need of my strength in order to permeate the skin that I wear so thickly and connect to the heart of this matter. Can you, for one time, be me?

I know the question is more ridiculous than the answer. It's a lonely place to dwell. I guess I had just hoped that I could be your knight, and you could be mine.

I am so tired of fighting off all your demons. I am tired of protecting you through the night. I wish, for this moment, that you could stay awake and fight off mine. I wish I could be damaged, and wounded, and broken. I wish I could be splintered and cracked. Or maybe the truth of it all is that I wish you could be the glue the holds me together. I wish you could understand these things without me communicating them. I wish you could perceive me well enough to reach into the thick, black, billowy clouds and promise that you won't leave me alone.

"Where was my conscience? Where was my consciousness? And what do I do with all these letters that I wrote to myself, but can not address?"