Please Don’t Shut Me Out

On the outside....

My heart feels like it is in a dark, isolated cave. I’m gripped by fear, it’s cold and unfeeling with a damp that chills me to the very core of my being. Light is a hope that is denied to me, my lungs try to breath in air which seemingly dissipates with every try. I am consumed with thoughts of what is to come, the fight that will take place, but not on the outside.

The brain is a different organ. Its ideas can be without compassion, cold and calculated and angry, yet bold. It lies and betrays, it has to, it can’t let the heart win. It will keep knocking on a door with a chance that it will be answered.

So who do I listen to? My heart that traps me in the dank, depressing cave, leaving me powerless and afraid? Or my brain that can be mistaken as being cruel and unfeeling. However, there must be a balance, a face-off, which will win, which will survive?

But being on the outside, it's like your breath catching the window, as a steaming mass appears, whispering their longing and loneliness. Hope is wiped, yet the glass remains, reflecting and mocking what is now and what may come.

I stumbled on to the scene with my two children clutched by my side, faces of innocence, with no experience of life, catching my breath, isolated and insecure, self-doubt creeping from the darkest of crevasses to ensnare and explore the depths of my soul.

Cancer is a word that leaves your soul cold, yet self-doubt is cruel and poisonous waiting to strike. Both leave behind questions with no answers and betrayal in its wake. Let me come into your circle, let me feel needed and secure that I am fighting with you I implore. But here I am in the dark begging to be let in, he’s my dad and he needs me, so I beg you don’t leave me outside to wander down avenues that are corrupt, hissing self-doubt with its silvery tongue licking and smiling, feeding on me. So please, my family, don’t leave me on the outside in the dampness that turns into hostility and guilt. Left with possibilities of what I can give, just because I am not near doesn’t mean I don’t care. As I explore my emotions, I am fighting a battle and I am desperately trying not to take it out on my husband or my children.

I am hanging on, my nails seem red, bruised and sore. My eyes are shut, my head cries out with empathy. I want to scream, echos of my anguish vibrating, circling and circling around and around. I can’t let the tears out for they may never stop, a stream winding, twisting and bending looking for a home. My final words quake like a volcano, as the lava burns deep within, forces bend and self-doubt is taunting, your not worth it get use to the cold.

For my dad so dear, hands that were safe, reliable and strong never will I give up, I will wait on the outside until I am no longer shunned, your hand in mine, loving you and guiding you as you once did me.