I Wish She'd Get Laryngitis

The voice in my head, the one that sounds so god awfully familiar, the voice that told childhood me that I was too fat, too lazy, not tall enough, not smart enough, not graceful enough, too tall, not good enough, never, ever good enough, HER voice, that voice in my head is relentless tonight.

Oh, she is mocking me.

She tells me I am alone, lonely, because I'm not worth any effort.  She tells me I am horrid to look at, so faded and wrinkled, used up and damaged, flabby and soft...how can I hope anyone would want to hold me, touch me, want me?  For all that I try not to want these things, in the end I am human.

She taught me to want my Prince Charming while at the same time unceasingly reminding me that no Prince Charming could ever want me, and I fight with myself over the sorry wishing for him, admonish myself that I do not need him...but I want him just the same.

My head knows he doesn't exist, but my heart...my poor, useless, shattered, forlorn heart...keeps hoping despite all evidence to the contrary.

Damned voice.

Damned horrible woman who planted herself in my psyche with roots so deep it doesn't matter how often, how hard I try to tear them out, something always remains to sprout anew.

Tonight it was a kiss.  Not mine.  There are no kisses for me right now and maybe there won't ever be any more, or ones like the one that set her off.  A simple, sweet kiss between two people who love each other impossibly, deeply, once in a lifetime strong and true, and I thought how wonderful to know such love exists.

So of course she started in, reminding me that such a love might be for some but certainly not for me because really, who could?

Fool that I am, I answered that there's no harm wishing maybe someone looked at my lips and wished they could kiss them.  I'll spare you her answers.  She's cruel.

She's cruel and tonight I'm tired and lonely and feeling all of my years and all of my depression is crashing down on me, and in these dark moments I find myself wishing for someone to lean against for a few minutes...and what I have is a pillow to cry into so my kids don't hear me, and my cats who don't understand, and the calm, gentle hand I wish for, the quiet and loving touch, is nowhere to be found, and the only phantom in my head right now is a mean-spirited woman in whose eyes I could never do right.

As I wonder if I will ever know an end to these nights of crying myself to sleep, she laughs and answers "No" with such certainty it's almost impossible not to believe her.