Pure exhaustion is reliving a nightmare and having no one and no where to turn.

It cracks and snaps in your chest, your head, your stomach and you still have to be strong and patient and pleasant and everything.

Someone would have to care deeply for me to know some days are very hard. Some days I need more love than I can give. Some days they would have to help pick me up. Even though I always get up alone, what if someone was there for me? What and who could I potentially be without this hollow ache that drains away my spirit?

This is true loneliness. It is not the sinking or sadness, it's the rigidity. The callous I have become because I need love I cannot have.

I tell myself lies out loud to get through it. Lies I choose to believe because I want to be better for my son so badly.

But all the people I would not be myself without, I am without them. Most days this loss is easily ignored. But today, looking in that woman's eyes, I am reminded how violently my wounds were inflicted. How deeply I can lose myself in those experiences when triggered.

A reoccurring nightmare that will never end as long as I own this consciousness.