Let It Breathe

I feel like I've been forced to take a bribe. A bribe I was avoiding and that I was not given an option in accepting. I feel like there are terms to the bribery that are forced on me... terms I had been rejecting because they required that I be fake. But I have this bribe now that I cannot return and I am forced into these undesirable terms of agreement... terms that insist I pretend and compromise my justified and valid feelings. It's a bandaid bribe mostly for the benefit of the bribers so they can feel better about things and not have to see the ugly hurting sore beneath. But my pains don't need a bandaid. They need air to breathe, to form my hard ugly scab, and let the healing occur behind the scenes, so when that scab is ready to fall off it will reveal new skin. Picking at it will only make it worse and leave a scar.

Today I am twenty eight. I do not want to celebrate it with anybody, not even with those I love. I want it to just pass. The best gift anybody could give me on this day is space.