Rough Hewn: Wounds

When you are young, they tell you life will give you wounds and that time heals everything. Time does not heal; it only teaches you to look at the wound without flinching.

Then you grow older and you start noticing. It is then you see how people who once had happy, laughing personalities—the kind of people you thought were world conquerors—begin to change.

Something small at first: a subtle sadness in their laughter, a vacant gaze that wasn’t there before. You realize that they have been broken like delicate crockery, and the pieces of who they were no longer fit together so perfectly. Some piece has gone missing. Perhaps it is hope, faith, or trust in humanity.

They go on living, speaking, even smiling, yet you sense that a light has gone out behind their eyes. They walk among us, but they are no longer fully present. It is as if the person you knew has gone, and all that’s left is the shell of their former self, still trying to pretend they are whole.

Suddenly, one day, you realize you are becoming like them too. The cracks are starting to show.

Some are born to thrive, 

I am barely alive.

I am tired of this unexplainable ache, 

And of the macabre dance of existence I partake.