“32” by Atisha Paulson

topic: LOVE AND HEARTBREAK medium: TEXT

32 years of life on this planet and what do I have to show for it? I still haven’t had one successful relationship with a woman. I can’t
even say with certainty that I’ve ever even dated a woman. They’ve all been little girls. Fucked up little girls. And that’s why I fall for
them and why it never works. But those days are gone. Dead and buried in the cracks of my broken heart.

I need a woman. I need a woman bigger than me. Someone who can take me out of myself. I haven’t met her. Ever. Well, maybe once or twice but I’m sure I fucked it up because I was wasted. Alcohol. Drugs. For sure they played a part in my demise. But I am rebuilding. From the inside out. Day by day. It’s so much more difficult to create than it is to destroy. I’m so good at tearing things apart, scattering the remains on the ground and walking away. Never looking back. But hurting. With each footstep the pain intensifies until I’m numb and can’t feel a single thing then slowly, ever so slowly, sometimes not even being aware of it I regain sensation – the sensation of living – but part of me has died. The trusting, open, innocent part that remained left over from my childhood. I was still a child. But not anymore. Now I’m just 32.