Heart Bones

by Colleen Hoover

I think when you’re the worst of people, finding the worst in others becomes a survival tactic of sorts. You focus heavily on the darkness in people in hopes of masking the true shade of your own darkness.

I wonder what kind of upbringing is worse for a human. The kind where you’re sheltered and loved to the point that you aren’t aware of how cruel the world can be until it’s too late to acquire the necessary coping skills, or the kind of household I grew up in. The ugliest version of a family, where coping is the only thing you learn.

Most kids get the kind of parents that’ll be missed after they die. The rest of us get the kind of parents who make better parents after they’re dead.

It’s weird how your whole life can completely change in the hours between waking up and going to bed.

Sometimes I believe personalities are shaped more by damage than kindness. Kindness doesn’t sink as deep into your skin as the damage does. The damage stains your soul so bad, you can’t scrub it off. It stays there forever, and I feel like people can see all my damage just by looking at me.

But I’ll cope. It’s what I do.

Even though pieces of me resemble pieces of them, I’ve never felt like I’ve belonged to either one of them. It’s as if I adopted myself when I was a kid and have been on my own since then. This visit with my father feels just like that…a visit. I

Home still feels like a mythical place I’ve been searching for my whole life.

Damaged people recognize other damaged people. It’s like a club you don’t want a membership to.

“But I get it. It’s weird, though, isn’t it? Why do people judge other people based on how tightly their skin clings to their bones?”

It looks so out of place in this fancy room, but that makes me even happier that I brought it with me. I need a piece of home to remind me that this room and this house and this town are not my reality.