The Truth About Being Honest When You Are Terrified

I've been crying for the past two weeks.  Every day I think, this is the bottom of the barrel, it can't get any worse than this - and then another barrel opens up below that and I fall even lower.  To my chagrin, I'm a painfully honest person.  I hate lying.  So every time someone asks me how I'm doing, I tell them about the barrel I'm in.  Unfortunately that has resulted almost exclusively in lectures about how to get out of the barrel, which have left me more bruised + battered than before.

you could plant me like a tree beside a riveryou could tangle me in soil + let my roots run wildand i would blossom like a flower in a desert//but for now just let me cry//
Life leaves wounds, wounds which I'm not sure ever really heal until the Lord comes back, and I've always been a deeply passionate, vulnerable person, which means my soul is so close to the surface that it gets hurt a lot without me knowing how to protect it.  I see people close to me who have tough skins and manage to plough through their hurts, who manage to overcome them and keep going - and I'm left miserable + drowning in a sense of insecurity because I'm NOT the suffer-in-silence type.  If I try to bottle it away, I create what the past two weeks have been: swallowing-glass misery + a feeling of being emotionally dead yet suffering hellacious agony at the same time.

you could raise me like a banner in a battleput victory like fire behind my shining eyesand i would drift like falling snow over the embers//but for now just let me lie//
Please Handle Souls With Care.  |  Like a small wild animal, I will lash out when I feel like I'm backed into a corner + can't take any more.  It's a nasty reaction and a nasty place to be, and it's where I've been for the past two weeks - getting pushed further + further into a corner //and then getting harried + cut more when I react because I feel like I can't take any more.//  Sometimes it's the regrettable, angry lashing-out of someone in pain, sometimes it's the desperate crying of the two blind men calling for Jesus' mercy - either way, everything around me seems to try to smother me.  My soul is cut raw + I'm begging for someone to handle it gently.

bind up these broken bonesmercy, bend + breathe me back to lifebut not before you show me how to die
I'm Terrified of People Now + Somehow I Still Want to be Honest.  |  Half of what you see on The Penslayer is the burst of flame + genius that comes with my magic-prone, imaginative soul.  It's all very nice to look at, and maybe you wish you had that spark too.  Everybody writes differently, everybody has a different soul; I just wanted you to know that, behind the glamour + the flash + the prose I write which you like to eat, there's a young woman who is not always sure how to be happy, and has been crawling through a living death for awhile.  I am literally shaking head to toe with fear as I write this.  It's not all Dammerung + cool writing.  It's having never lived this life before + messing up a lot at it while simultaneously feeling like I should be doing better than I am.  It's been living with the guilt of feeling guilty.  It's been hurting + feeling like the hurt is all my fault.  It's been feeling lost + wondering if I accidentally threw away the map.

i can't be the only one

This is my story right now.  I share it because, dreadfully introverted as I am, sharing my burdens is how I find release.  I share it because I want you to know who the Penslayer Girl really is.  Of course I want you to love my writing as much as I do.  I put my heart + soul into my work.  It's a forge of passion for me.  It's a pair of wings.  It's a clipper ship + a comet + a smile from someone I love.  But I want you to know that when I write among the stars, sometimes I'm six feet under ground.

"beginning to sink, he cried, 'lord, save me!' "
image via pinterest