Glass

It's just a second, and there they go. The moment seems to happen in slow motion and at warp speed. Two glasses are knocked over on the table. I yelp and stand up, shaking and rigid. A second earlier I was a normal 20-something-year-old, and now I'm a curious stranger in a restaurant overly alarmed by knocked over glass.

.

.

Glass. 

.

.

It's everywhere. The rug. The carpet. The counter. The wall. 

Glass. Sand. Rocks. Candles.

Somewhere in the never-ending and millisecond moment, I think to close my eyes.

I slowly peel them open.

Standing there with my arms frozen at right angles. A painful, tiny shake overtakes my forearms, then my whole body. Scan the arms. Micro cuts no one else will notice. I'd let a breath out if I could. It could have been worse.

I stand there for too long, then self-protective mode takes over. He stalks into the other room in an angry, yet controlled manner.

What will he return with...

I shrink into a ball with enveloping arms. 

It's a vacuum.

He begins to vacuum, as if I'm not there.

Tears stream over matted blonde-dyed hair and a navy floral dress. A girl that will appear on Facebook as part of a happy couple.

The words come rolling out in a whisper over and over again - I need to leave. I need to leave.

But I don't. I want to, and I can't. All I can do is work my legs to find the bathroom and curl up there.

Door bangs open. 

He appears different. Out of it.

The next few minutes are a blur.

I wrote you another letter, he at some point voices. You aren't going to like it. 

He searches. He can't find it.

He floats me to his bed. Now I'm a frozen ball on white. I don't want to be here, but I can't move.

I lied, he says.

And then it all spills out, as he slips into an icy, almost gleeful trance. 

He didn't go to therapy. Maybe to church. He didn't get rid of his guns. He didn't stop the drinking, the adderall, or the tobacco.

He slept with multiple people. He didn't break up with another woman until the day after we reconciled.

They're empty vessels. All of them. He can't stop now. The tide that's been trapped beneath his masked face is taking over.

People, I think, but he doesn't care.

I ask him if he took something. This thing scares me more than his rage. 

This is me. He non-chalantly combs his thumb over his mouth.

I find myself curled on my side. Pajamas slowly, shakily pulled over me as I face away from him. Remain frozen there all night. Wide awake. 

The next day, he turns back into the man I want him to be.

I meet him at my favorite garden. He reads a poem. Promises to really make good on the promises he broke. He pulls me onto his lap on the stone bench. We're cradling each other's faces and sobbing.

The words still cycling in my head - I need to leave him. I promised myself that I would at the first sight of violence. But I know, as I hold him and he holds me - I can't. 

So I pick up the broken pieces and begin to cut myself trying to put them back together.

.

.

And I did. 

But where once were cuts - are now wounds healing.

Sometimes they throb. Sometimes in the form of a woman shaking over glasses spilled on a table.

I write to remind myself and anyone else that needs it - that there will be parts of your journey that you will still need to overcome - and that's okay.

Because we are all learning how to put our pieces back together. 

One of the advocates I worked with during my healing process once told me that recovery after trauma was like a broken vase. 

You can't glue the pieces back together again, 

but you can place the pieces to make a new mosaic.