Feeling bitter is a failure to love yourself, to see your own emotions with true clarity. For when you do, though you have been hurt so very much, there is the serenity that makes moving onwards possible, that opens new doors to new loves and new chances for self growth. Your battle is always with yourself, to become your better self. So, love yourself, become sweeter and you'll be okay.
"Was it fun watching Claire suffer? Did it fill your cup with cold malice? Did you get a buzz of power when she cried and begged for common human decency? Don't answer. I don't give a damn what you have to say, how you make cruelty alright with twisted logic. She gave you love and you abused it. Am I angry? No. I'm bitter and that's worse. Angry is over fast, bitter lasts."
I was raised in love and peace, taught to show grace and forgive, but when my mind turns to you none of it is there. You knew what you were doing. I suffered and you drank it like a fine wine, becoming intoxicated on your own power. All I feel is bitterness and with each passing year it grows like a tumour, pushing on the side of me that was serene, enveloping me in toxic darkness.
If I saw you in trouble I just don't know if I'd help. I imagine you dangling from a high-rise tower and the only thing between you and certain death is my outstretched hand. You took Valerie away as if she were a prize you won. She was my life. You took her away and made her miserable, stealing every ounce of purity from her soul. Then you cast her off like a worn sock. I care for her now, soothe her in the good times and the bad, but don't think there is forgiveness in my soul because there is none. You knew what you were doing, you rode that demon dragon inside of you to new highs of cruelty and loved it. The more I dwell on it the more I see you falling to the cracked sidewalk below.
I gave you all the love I had and you took it with you like a possession. My body has become a shell for the shattered remains of who I was: vivacious and high spirited. You drained me better than a vampire, giving yourself youth at my expense. Without love what else is there to consume me but bitterness? I hate you with the rising sun and long into the night that follows, only interrupted by dreams that leave me drained.
You knew it was wrong and you did it regardless. Every time we asked for help, no matter how deserved, you played favourites. We were the abused. You didn't care. You took every opportunity to side with our enemy. You took your job as the "umpire" and abused it, warped it, until we were left bereft of protection. So long as you got your pay cheque, what did it matter? So long as you got a bonus and a long vacation, you were just dandy, right? Well we didn't fare so well. Len got banged up in an institution, the years of chronic stress did too much harm for him to survive intact. Katy suffers PTSD and anxiety. Me? What do I suffer? More bitterness than will ever subside. I want you to feel what they did, the fear, the anxiety, even if it's just for a little while. I want you to eat just a little of the same poison you were so happy for them to swallow daily. Maybe it'll educate you, maybe you'll learn nothing, but maybe, just maybe, some of my bitterness will ebb.
In the half-light Caleb looks like the shadow he's become. Hunched over the baggage he could be anybody, and in a way I guess he is. I took our bond for granted, and in my naivety I'd thought it unbreakable. But when that bus pulls away it won't only be broken, but shattered into fragments more numerous than the stars. I want to beg, plead, get down on my knees and tell him that his life here has meaning, that our love has meaning, but I know that face. It is the one he wears when his ears are closed and his mind has put up barriers to all new information. So no matter what I say it will only push him further away. So when I walk closer it is with a mask of contentment. I wish him well with the voice that came so naturally before his plan to do great things far away, it sounds like me but it isn't. I'm already in transition to become a person I never wanted to be. The bitterness is rising like bile into my mouth and when he's gone I'll have no reason to swallow it anymore.
If you ever find Derek at the bottom of a well just leave him there, or better yet throw a rock on his head. But I'm not that lucky, like a bad penny he'll always show up when he needs something. Never once has he listened to a concern of mine and said something even related to it back to me. If I say my computer went of the fritz, he'll say "Did you watch The Flash last night?" or "Could you lend a few quid for lunch?" The one time I needed him, when Mum got the cancer diagnosis, he was harder to find than empathy at a psychopath conference. After that I put him in his right place in my mind, he was a friend of convenience and nothing more.
I'd always had so many friends - popular without trying. I guess that makes me lucky. Then in my grade ten year my kidneys failed almost completely. I was out of school, medicated up to the eyeballs. The steroids puffed me right out and even getting out of bed was hard. After one obligatory visit I never heard from my "best friends" again. But thank God for Julie; Julie the quiet girl I was nice to but never really included on purpose. She sent me cool videos to watch and came over twice a week. She'd bring her mother's baking and we'd laugh about the stupid things people said on Facebook. She was my lifeline. When I returned I was a full year behind the others, they said "Hi" and asked how I was doing now. I should have seen them for what they were, naturally self-centred teens, but I didn't. I hated every one of them. I wanted them to get sick like I'd been. I wanted them to know what it was like to be isolated and scared. But I smiled sweetly and played along. I have Julie.
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