Unnamed - (Suggestions?)

I spent a lifetime building walls out of small, quiet doubts.

Every morning, I lace my boots for an oncoming storm.
I wear my pessimism like a heavy wool coat in July,
Sweating under the weight of it, but convinced it will keep me safe from the sudden, biting frost of a world that owes me nothing.
"Expect the worst," I whisper to the bathroom mirror like those words could somehow protect me. 

For years the Universe complied with my low expectations. 
Sure, it was dull and exhausting, but it was predictable. 
I knew that I could never fall because I had never dared to stand.

But then there was a crack in my armor. 
A single, rogue ray of light slipped through the concrete.
It was a promise, a person, a dream too beautiful to ignore.
And for the first time, my hands shook with anticipation, not fear.


I did the hardest thing a guarded soul could ever do:
I allowed myself to want.
I unbuttoned that obnoxiously heavy coat.
I removed my armor, piece by piece, leaving my fragile heart exposed to the terrifying, yet exhilarating, air of possibility. 
I looked to the sky with a smile and thought, "Maybe this time. Just this once." 
I allowed that fragile, glass architecture of hope to lay its light inside my chest.

Eventually, I began to visualize victory. 
I could feel the warmth of a happy ending. 
I anchored my entire weight to single, but beautiful, 'what if'.

But that's when everything fell apart. 

The blow didn't just hurt, it shattered the foundation.
The worst didn't just happen, it arrived with a cruel, mocking expression, as if it had been waiting for me to smile, to be happy. 
All so that it could strike me down when I was vulnerable.

The disappointment is not just a shadow, it's a physical weight.
It's a cold anvil sitting directly on my lungs, preventing my every breath.
It's the sound of the glass splintering inside me, leaving an echoing silence of an empty room where a celebration was supposed to be. 

Yes, the betrayal hurts, but the self-inflicted shame hurts worse.
I have to stand in the wreckage of my own vulnerability.
And then the voice creeps in to the edges of my mind, louder now.
It's a familiar friend, but it's voice stings as it speaks, "I told you this is all that awaits you when you dream. When you dare to hope. When happiness returns."

I feel the urge to crawl back into the dark, and I do. 
I reinforce the walls with steel, so that I may never look to the sun again.

Because the ache of being right about the horror is nothing in compare to the drowning agony of trusting that hope, only to be let down once again.