Just watch me.

I am at a turning point. This is it... I can feel it.

It's been building for a long time. Since I was twelve and laying in my bed with the lights off and not sleeping because I was terrified to turn over. That something would be staring at me through the darkness. The past. My nightmares. Monsters. I'd pull the blankets to my chin and fold my hands over my chest because if something was going to get me, my heart would somehow be protected.

I've been doing it every night since. And every other hollow, fleeting minute of the day. Protecting myself. Finding excuses to get angry at (and subsequently push away) the people who start to get close.

Because the truth is, I'm scared that no one will love me up close. That if you stepped up and peered at me long enough, you'd see through my I-don't-give-a-fuck-eyes and right down into my jealous, dirty little heart. You'd see the guilt and the anger in its guise of sadness. The insecurity and hurt glowing from the same girl who told you she knows she's a looker. You'd see the past that I can't let go. Until now.

I have to if I want my life to go anywhere. I'm getting over what I can't control and I'll admit things I could never bring myself to admit before because the pain and embarassment they brought with saying.

There have been times in the last several years that I was so full with grief I felt I might combust.

But so what? Shit happened and I'm tired of holding it on my shoulders. I'm not the same person I was four or three or two or even one year ago. I'm more mature and more composed. And despite how many things I might've screwed up in building walls around myself, I'll do the best I can now to tear them down and fix whatever I can.

And tell people what I think.
And allow myself to be as vulnerable as I can handle being.

Because despite the names, the abuse, the eating disorder, the death and the lies, my bruised little heart is still beating and I refuse to waste even a second more of my life dwelling on something that is done with.

I'll let people in as much as I can bear and if they can't stand the look of a battered chest, it's their loss because I know that deep down, somewhere, I am still a good person.