it's funny, but not really

inspired by, but not based on, events from my own life. if that even makes sense. I just wrote this a few days ago and kind of liked it.

//last march//

It’s funny, isn’t it, that the people who hurt us most are the ones we keep going back to? Even if the safest thing to do is patch yourself up and move on, sometimes it hurts more to take that first step away than it does to stay and feel the dagger twisting in your stomach, feel the burn marks on your skin and the scabs peeling off your heart. Because maybe they hurt you, but maybe they didn’t mean it. And maybe you need them, but maybe they need you too, and this is their way of saying it. Maybe “this too shall pass” and they’ll change back, suddenly become the person they were. The person you need them to be.

And maybe, sometimes…what you need to do is move on, even if you can’t take that first step on your own. Maybe you need someone else to take your hand and yank you into motion, because after the first few halting, stumbled steps, it gets easier.

It’s funny, but not really, that the people you love the most are the ones that hurt you. And they’re the ones you can’t leave, the ones you go back to even though you know they’re past hope, because you have hope anyways.

And maybe it’s not funny at all, because the joke gets old and the people who tried to help you both are long gone, and you’re both still standing there, hurting each other. But without meaning to, not really. Two untrained people swinging swords in the dark, trying to find their way out of the blackness, but able to carve paths only to pain.

And that’s sometimes what caring can do to you. It can leave you scarred, standing there with your own blood on your hands, nobody’s tears but your own in your eyes, the way out right in front of you, but so far from being an option. Because nobody wants to walk home alone.

And I won’t go without you.