The words are jumbled, stilted.

You wear pointy heels and your ringtone is Journey.

Almost a whisper.

Reading too much sauce, I ache.

Far too uncomfortable with the man holding a turkey sandwich, I smile and walk away. That feeling that someone is staring at your ass? Yeah.

I’ve sat here, the screen taunting me for days. Too scared to write what I want to – the words never forming.

I’ve become a shell. One that is likely to crack at any moment.

I wear the smile, I make the jokes… I play the role. I know my place. And I know it well. I wear it like a jacket, keeping everyone around me safe and cozy. Never changing, always there, just being Amy.

You’re just Amy, and that makes this easy, he said as he gave me a 6% raise.

Just Amy. What does that even mean? Do these people that I see every day really even know me?

It’s all becoming overwhelming and I wonder what a panic attack feels like. Better yet, I wonder what I’m supposed to feel like in these moments, these tiny moments that are practically insignificant to most.

Suddenly, choosing a birthday card for my dad was the most important task in the world, and those damn Hallmark aisles, with their goddamn mood lighting, didn’t have one that said the right words. The words that I should’ve said the day I left the hospital. The words I should’ve been saying my whole life.  I threw the stack down, on the verge of losing my sanity in the middle of Wal Mart and walked out.

With a mother fucking smile at the lady at the door. Even a you too when she wished me a good day.

I never said a word about it. Never told anyone that the constricting in my chest, right where my heart belongs, scared the shit out of me.

Why didn’t Hallmark just make a stupid card that said “I hope you don’t think I’m a shitty daughter. I know you were strung out and in jail for a good portion of my life, but the efforts that you’ve made over the last 10 years have meant the world to me. I know that you would go to the ends of the earth for me, and I love you with all my heart. Please don’t leave me.”

Instead, there’s pictures of dad’s with their daughters on their shoulders walking down the beach. Because you know? Everyone that buys cards are Norman fucking Rockwell paintings.

A minor thing. A crack in the shell, though.

I’ve been too scared to call to check on him.

I’ve been relying on what others have been telling me.

Is that the right way to do it? Probably not. I can’t stand the thought of calling and listening to the stinging, hollow words that I heard that first day. I can’t do it.

He called me, sobbing. Big, heavy, heaving sobs and I could practically see the alligator tears coming through the phone.

Trying to find a corner in the department store to hide, I asked over and over. Please, what’s wrong. Tell me what’s wrong. In those few seconds of nothing but sobs, I mentally prepared my luggage, mentally balanced my checkbook to prepare for the drive or flight back to the sprawling city of Spokane.

She told me what I said to you. I hope that someday you can forgive me.

Crack.

Nothing to forgive, I mumbled as I ran my finger along a stainless steel blender. I just love you. I want you to be ok. I want for this nightmare to be over. I love you. I love you. I love you.

I couldn’t say I love you enough.

I had to leave the store, the kick ass pair of boots forgotten in between mixers and coffee makers.

I can’t get enough angsty music. Bonnie Raitt, Edwin McCain… I just want it all to be mellow, mellow, mellow. I want to smoke some pot, drink a beer and fucking forget. But I don’t.

The cracks continue – the petition for a child support increase from that fucking cuntface. Buying the business. Filling out forms. Dentists.

It’s overwhelming.

Dinner with the in laws tonight. Always a good time. They want out. Want to retire. We’re ready, they said. I’ll change the accounts on Monday. You’ll make more money than you are now. You have the tools you need to succeed.

I’m not in control of anything. Never before have I realized what a maniacal control freak I am. Until these little moments. Everything is jumbled and spiraling and spinning and twisting.

Look at me, all angsty and emo and wah wah wah.

This isn’t a poem. I don’t know what it is. It’s the mess that’s in my brain. Trying to reconcile my feelings.

I haven’t cried in weeks. Tempted to watch Beaches just so I can let it out. But I don’t.

I’m a masochistic, control freak.

The wedding that will never be. When? they all ask. When when when when when. I feel like its a race. As if the answer is important to some ultimate goal that they all need to achieve.

He knows. I have one condition. It costs very little, and takes a few minutes of his time. Yet, he hasn’t. I won’t wait around forever.

Crackcrackcrack every time they ask.

Can’t focus, can’t sleep. Just toss and turn and do shit work all day and struggle through homework at night, or put it off until the very last day and start all over again.

Care to unjumble me?