On the outside, I am composed. Where teeth show with every smile and lips are always curved upwards. Advice comes from my mouth to the desperate ears of those around me. I'm the girl who can't be broken, the girl who only cries from laughter. I'd laughed off every mental bruise, every emotional broken bone, as another experience to learn from, a story to tell when the smoke had gone away. On the outside, I was the girl with good grades, the raised hand in class, the bowed head in church. On the outside, I am who I want to be. I have created the self that I've always wanted to be. I'm the problem solver, the match maker, the sense of humor that could dry crying eyes. On the outside, I couldn't be touched. I was unbreakable, a heart that could never be shattered.

But on the inside, every erratic heartbeat sent shivers through my nervous bones. Fractured emotions crawled their way into my brain, desperately clinging to the only warmth in my body. Caution tape wrapped around my heart after every break-in; I tried calling the police but I knew this emergency was something I had to suck up and deal with. Help! Is anybody there? I've been abused! I don't have the bruises to show.

Because on the inside, nobody really cares how healthy you are. They brush it off as being all in your head. They're right. It is all in our heads. Physical pain is the only pain that qualifies. Do they understand that I die everyday so no one else has to? Do they really know the things that we've been through? My mind is a war zone and I'm left to rake up the casualties day after day after day... I can't escape it. How could I let this happen? Where did I go wrong?

Everyone I've ever loved has written in ink on my heart. When I look at the messages, I can see every lie. I love you was just one of the lies I'd accumulated over the years.

On the inside, I make it my goal to love those who have never been loved. To talk to those who've never heard the things they deserve to know. To forgive the unforgivable, to change the unchangeable, to question the unquestionable.

On the outside, I am who I want to be. On this inside, I grit my teeth and tell myself that one day I'll be who I want to be.

I'm starting to believe that, maybe, the love I want to give to others will find its way to me. I'm trying to teach myself that I deserve love just as much as everyone does. That my mistakes can be forgiven. Maybe, I'll fall in love with someone who loves me too. And maybe that time, it'll work out.

I write to release the part of me that wants so badly to change but can't seem to find a way. Incomprehensible feelings flow easily into words that I can understand.

I am shattered on the inside.

But on the outside, I am complete.