The Woman I Became

The hardest pill to swallow is the one you curated yourself into believing is poison.

I don't talk to my parents like I used to. If I manage to get them on the phone as the call dies part of feels more alone. I used to call them every day, but one day everything changed. The calls became shorter, the arguments never found apologies, secrets were held with sealed lips, and the calls became scarcer. 

I tried to keep the connection beating between us, but it kept on flat lining. The woman I have become grows more distant and colder each day. My mother used to be my best friend now she's my harshest critique. I wish I could pinpoint a specific time and place when twenty-one years went down the drain. But I cannot. 

The truth is we haven't been close for a while. I never noticed it until the distance became more prominent. I wish I could confess but I cannot. 

The reality is I changed. I broke in ways I never thought were possible. I never knew a heart could shatter like glass until mine did. But it wasn't just my heart, I could live without a heart. No, it was my mind and everything I held to be true. I am not the girl they raised; she was forced to become a woman before her time. 

Sometimes I cry for the girl I was. I wonder what she would think of us now. Maybe that's why my parents don't talk to me like they use to because I am no longer that girl. They cannot bare the weight I carry like they thought they could. When I was young, they could shoulder some of the weight protect me from making their mistakes. But now, no one can bare this weight except me.

I'm sorry mom that you couldn't protect me from the woman I became.