I'm broken. Not like an arm or a leg. A cast can't fix me.
I'm damaged. Not like a can of vegetables or a package that's been dropped. There is no return policy
I'm broken and damaged but I'm expected to put a smile on my face no matter how empty it is, I'm supposed to pretend to see the beauty in the world that is not the same anymore I am not the same anymore
I am scared. Not like the fleeting kind of experience on a haunted hayride, my nightmares are very much so my reality.
I'm failing not like on an exam no amount of studying preparation would have helped me.
I'm scared and failing with the lives of two innocent children who themselves can't make sense of the loss they have been through.
I'm supposed to teach them innocence, I don't know what innocence is anymore.
I have a wall around me. Not one that can be broken down, a rubber mallet has no chance bringing cement down.
I feel death around me not wilting flowers or brown grass, sunshine and water won't fix the past.
I'm stuck not liking to South Dakota snow draft horse power and chains won't work for my brain.
The Past never letting me go or maybe it's I who can't let go of it. The most uncomfortable miserable empty familiar and complacent way my brain chooses to be stuck in the past.
Because if I work to fix my broken parts and embrace my damaged self accept the horrific reality of what has forever changed my outlook on life,
but refused to show my children anything other than innocence
At the same time it's their innocence and unconditional love that is going to demolish the cement wall, the one thing I had been so comfortably numb hiding behind
that means it's okay to move forward with life without you and I never imagined a life like this.
That my future will only have faded memories and pictures that are too hard to look at.
This means I will and do have the strength to move on and also keep your memory alive. I may be broken, damaged, scared,, hiding behind a wall, with death all around me but I am not and will not let it defeat nor define me!