Dear, Shame

It’s almost funny that I write you this letter, as I’ve already been talking to you all day.
You are the reason my head hangs low in the hallway, you are the reason certain names make me feel sick. You are the reason I blame myself and only myself, and you are the reason I learned to vomit silently.

The few people that know about my friendship with you say that you hold no power over me. They say that I'm forgiven and I can live past all my wrongdoings, but they are wrong. You are my only real constant in this dreary life and in sick a way that's almost comfortable. No matter how much I numb myself down or ignore my own walls you are a tiny prick on the right side of my brain and the space between my legs. No one else knows me so well and I doubt anyone else ever will.

When I'm with you I can feel all the dirt that the scrubbing won't wash out and all the poison the purging will never clear. You bring me back down to my very base components, sex and desperation and sickening lonlieness. With you I am a slut, a liar, and a worthless disappointment, and that's all I will ever be.

Do you know how easy it was to count the pills, realise they might not be enough, and remember the bottle of liquor in the cabinet? Do you realise how much planning went into how I would poison myself, drown my liver in schnapps, and then drown my lungs in the lake?

Oh, shame, you are the bitter burning hole in my heart that I feel will never close. I don't deserve forgiveness and I don't deserve salvation, but I'm here anyways. Avoiding mirrors is easy but avoiding thoughts is impossible so I drown myself in work and mindless videos. I'm a husk of a person and that's all I'll be. I hope that makes you happy, for perhaps when there is nothing left of me you'll finally leave me broken self be. I know that's only wishful thinking and that I will never be free of you, but I can hope, it's all I have left.

Love,
Mary Noble.