A Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

From Black Sand Journal

When I am confronted with an unbearable situation, I make unfeasible promises to myself as a way of coping. I will not let my guard down, again. No one will ever reduce me to tears, again. My heart - now cast in steel - will not feel so much as a scratch, again.

I spent months directing masses of anger towards the world for building barriers that I hesitated to tear down. The walls were too formidable and too familiar, and I felt too frail to fell them. Once the debris began to tumble and the dust clouded my judgment, the last thing I should have been feelings was safe.

All that honeyed anticipation - conceived in a single beautiful, terrifying and utterly forgettable moment - has rotted instead of ripened. My anguish seems thoroughly unjustified. How do I tell people I lost something that I never really had and never said I wanted?

This illegitimate love, it haunts me.