I still haven't figured out the why.
The "why" of my role in this commitment.
The "why" of my existence in a life that feels less like a partnership and more like a sentence.
Why am I in it?
Why am I so weak, so broken, so distraught that walking away feels like carrying a mountain on my shoulders? Why am I choosing to demonstrate resilience in a relationship that never needed me, never valued me, never cared whether I was here or not? Why am I pouring strength into a hollow vessel that only drains me in return?
Why am I so hollow that I cannot stand up for myself? Why does my voice quake before it even escapes my lips? Why do I feel this constant disgust gnawing at me - for clinging to old-fashioned, suffocating values that I cannot seem to unlearn?
Values that were ingrained in me like commandments: endure, sacrifice, submit. And because of them, I cannot even begin to imagine a future that is brighter, freer, mine.
Why couldn't I give him - this man who broke me - what he wanted? Why couldn't I make this relationship work, give it its worth, its dignity, its credit? Why am I so unlikeable? So easy to discard? Why does every corner of this house remind me that I am unwanted? Not just here - not just by him - but perhaps by the world itself?
Unwanted. Hated. An afterthought.
And the list goes on. God, it never stops. The questions multiply like weeds in my head, winding tighter, growing deeper, choking out any moment of peace. I replay them on loop until the pounding in my skull becomes unbearable. Headaches that started as whispers now roar as migraines, so fierce and consuming they feel like another form of punishment - another blow to my existence.
And the worst part? I blame myself. I tell myself the roots of this pain lie in me, that I am the origin of this suffering. That I am the architect of my own prison. That if I had been stronger, braver, more worthy, more lovable, maybe none of this would have unfolded the way it did.
It is a twisted kind of torture - when the enemy outside has already beaten you down, and yet the voice inside whispers louder: This is your fault. You are the reason. You are the why.