This Little Hell

I had forgotten what a lonely, cold place this really is.  The memories of it faded... the pain healed--for the most part, at least.  I was able to live daily life with ease, usually finding it a quite grand and comfortable thing.  I was embarrassed with my past self and couldn't understand what on earth led me to be so hopeless, so angry, so lonely, so self-destructive, so... 

BROKEN.

But then it was almost like a rerun of one of those nights of the past.  The same dim lighting, the same set, the same cast, the same characters.  It felt more like watching a movie than actually being there.  The next day I experience the exact same flashbacks, followed by widened eyes and quivering lips, which leads to the extreme desire to cry--something never to be done in front of others, in my opinion.  I blink away the memories, trying to ignore the stinging feeling in my gut that can only come from the bitterness of being unloved by those who are supposed to love me the most.  Suddenly I realized that I wasn't such a ninny for being ripped to pieces from the inside out last time this started happening.  I want to be happy.  I want others to assume I really am the happy little ray of sunshine I try to portray to most.  The thought of my struggles ruining others' good time makes me feel like a selfish poop-head... so I have to at least try to look 

NORMAL.

Because if I give up on trying to look fine... then what else to I have?

It's distracting.  It's humiliating.  It's damaging.  Depressing, lonely, irrational, dramatic, stupid, cold, violent, exhausting, bitter, consuming, vicious, ugly, guilty... 

Hah, and you'd think being stuck in this little hell would make me want to try and be good and lay low and try to avoid more nights full of potential flashbacks...

Instead it makes me want to be free and break as many rules as possible, just because I know things will be mostly the same whether I try to do bad things or not.  I might as well have fun if I'm going down, right?  And then I remember that wickedness never truly was happiness and I start to become more rational... in most cases.  Oh, if I didn't have religion--the trouble I'd get myself into!  But it's a good thing I do.  I need something sound, unchanging in my life. 

If we could just hang a mirror on the bedroom wall
Stare into the past, and forget it all...