Emotional Exhaustion

Navigating Emotional Pain in Relationships

I built a bridge of patient, weary years,
A silent span of quiet, chosen words,
The mortar set with dried and vanished tears,
A testament to battles, not rewards.
My hands I offered, strong and open wide,
To hold the weight of your erratic sphere,
To stabilize the chaos you supplied,
Yet only met a storm, a boundless fear.
My effort was but dust upon the breeze,
Against the wind of your profound unease.

When your world tilts and loses all its grace,
The guttural cry of “holy hell” defines
The atmosphere of this abandoned place,
No longer haven, but a field of mines.
A sudden, unexpected fire starts,
Consuming fragile things that stood its test,
Leaving behind a jagged, broken heart.
With cruelty, you push me to the crest,
The edge of sanity, my failing might,
Expecting me to hold while you ignite.

I tried, desperately, to be the ground,
The immovable foundation in the shake.
I absorbed the shocks where steady peace was found,
Withstood the tremors for your troubled sake.
But now the space between us is a void,
A profound, echoing, desolate expanse,
Where kindness’s tender seed has been destroyed,
And understanding lost its saving chance.
Now only the choked vine of unyielding rage,
And your consuming need across this stage.

I’ve studied your map of pain for far too long,
Memorized the texture of each emotional scar,
Anticipating where the wound would throng,
An unwilling cartographer of your war.
But in that process, I forgot my name,
Eclipsed by roles I was compelled to fill:
Your punching bag, the target of your flame,
Your safe harbor, your shore against the chill.
But that era’s ended, clarity now bright,
I won’t be your refuse, your emotional blight.

The door to this shared history is heavy now,
Weighted by expectation and old despair,
But it is closed, with a final, solemn vow.
The work I poured is starkly laid out there—
Not as a failure of a loving mind,
But as an investment that was misguided, deep.
I failed no duty, I was not unkind,
I simply chose myself, the promises to keep
To me. I recognized the point of no return,
And in that closure, finally, I learn.

https://www.backstage.com/magazine/article/mask-in-theater-explained-77455

The Curtain’s Cost

I am utterly exhausted by this relentless play,
The heavy curtain of performance drawn too long.
I cannot hold the hollow smile another day,
To mask the deep, the aching emptiness that’s wrong.

The burden of a self that isn’t mine to wear,
To fit the mold you fashioned, cruel and tight,
An agonizing stretch away from who I care
To be—my own identity, eclipsed by your light.
You see a project, a design that must be met,
But tell me, why must the authentic me be cast aside?

I am finished fabricating reasons I have set,
For every thought and every reaction I can’t hide.
I’ve justified my nature to a vacant crowd,
To people who, I now accept, simply don’t care.

The painful truth: my hope was spoken out loud,
A unilateral effort lost on thin, cold air.
I poured my heart to mend what broke between,
But found no shared commitment, no reciprocal tide,
A solitary swimmer in an apathetic scene.

The loneliness, a constant, heavy friend,
A silent weight that settles on my weary chest.
It is an awful life, but if this is the end—
The price of being whole, of being finally blessed
To be myself—then I will pay the cost,
Choosing difficult solitude to rescue what was lost.

A burning, sharp anger now begins to rise,
A desperate need to shatter this profound pain.
But I know with bleak certainty in my own eyes,
That fury would be wasted, dissipating like the rain.

This crushing truth has settled, stark and clear:
Nothing I say, nothing I do or fail to be,
Holds any weight for them, for those who stand so near.
My voice is mute, my actions they refuse to see.

They are truly, utterly indifferent to my strife,
They do not pause to question what my heart endures.
My suffering, my struggle, the very pulse of life,
Is an irrelevance that their coldness secures.

I feel the urge to weep the entire day away,
To curl beneath the covers, let the sadness claim,
But reason whispers of a temporary stay,
No lasting remedy to solve this bitter game.

The torrent of resentment pleads to be set free,
A physical demand I check with weary hand,
Because the simple, crushing truth remains with me:
It will not change a thing across this barren land.

A complete despair now chills me to the bone,
In this cold context, in this life they have defined,
The heartbreaking finality I stand upon alone,
The truth that leaves no solace for the mind:

Nothing matters.