Origins

It didn't evaporate gently like the morning dew slowly floating back to its misty origins.  Rather, it was annihilated violently, much like the way the cruel August sun scorches the drops of moisture futilely clinging to browned blades of grass.

Sometimes I still feel your hands wrapped around my throat while I recall the way the whites of your eyes glowed as you lifted me off the floor by my neck. Nightmare-like, the seconds morphed into minutes while you attempted to squeeze the breath out of me.  You released me before I fainted, successful only in mortally wounding my ability to trust.

I make no apologies for who I am as a result.

It's so much safer to cocoon, to draw inward because I won't allow myself to be hurt like that again.

From time to time I let pieces of myself slip through a slivered opening, but each time I do I'm stung back to reality by rejection and insincerity. I retreat, feeling grateful that I never allowed the whole of me to emerge.  I chastise myself for the foolhardy attempt and return to my self-imposed exile.