You've hurt me for the last time --
The scars persist;
Solid, jagged, tracing a line
Back through so many years

Now the shield is raised,
The armor in place
The gates have been locked
The windows secured
The guards on alert
Defense as a "shell"

And it seems so strange
That it's come to this
(Just a short time ago
All the walls were down)

But I've learned a few things --
People; true colors
Lies built on more lies.
Neither you, nor your ilk,
Shall ever see inside
This damaged fortress again.

LF 12/21/08

Oh lex!

Can relate :) But life goes on :) To much peace joy and happiness to miss :)

Lex, I get this and feel it as well. I'm sorry.

Invictus.

Thank you. It's really my own fault. I have issues with letting the same person do the same thing to me over and over. You would think there would only be some limited number of times you could fall into a volcano before figuring out it isn't a good thing to do.

Your not alone :)

You would think. I'm smarter now.

I thought so too.

One can aspire, yes....

Reality sometimes gets in the way -- the issue of the all-too-evident vulnerability....some of us, in the end, make better mimes than robots....

nope to ones self be true

I usually am -- or have been. It's just this one certain person who seems to make me lose whatever common sense I had to begin with -- it's so good when it's good, but....

I can so relate to this. Thanks for sharing it. There is always one person that you have put yourself out for so many times. After so much pain, enough is enough. This should be a mantra that I repeat to myself till I mean it...because the coming back and leaving has to stop for the sanity of both.

The pain you feel is so evident. I too would build an Alhambra around my heart as you have.

I do remain skeptical about its efficacy as a strategy.

The only one who ever tries to get in is the one who causes the harm.

The walls keep everyone else out -- but they never try to get in anyway.

It is something of a knee-jerk oversolution to a problem that is, in reality, caused solely by one single person.

It would almost be "baby with the bathwater" -- if there were any babies IN the bathwater.

Yes, like preaching to the choir. The one person who needs to understand will never and will keep assualting, penetrating, looking for the weakness in the mortar. But it never feels like that until once again they are inside the inner chambers. It is only because we desire their elixir. Who's really to be faulted?

A co-dependency, perhaps, in some strange way. The time will come when she will "need" me for something, and then it will be all talk of "love" and "forever" and "commitment," etc. Until I fix things for her again, and then it will be "over" again. As it has ever been.

I will take the blame. I will accept that it is my responsibility, because I totally enjoy the "good" times -- never have I known an intellect like hers, a creative spirit, a sense of humor that never requires me to filter my own, in any way -- the most truly compatible person I have known -- and how sad is THAT? -- that "truly compatible" equates to "most damage" --

And yet -- try as I might to reach out, to find someone new, it is simply impossible. There is no one else out there.

I can only speak for myself and who's at fault. I want to beleive the words he tells me. I know too well from past experience, they are only for the moment,only for his selfish reasons. I know I am walking toward the fire, in the fire, and yet I don't turn back.

everyone here i feel sad that you all have been hurt by people who understood you the most should've have loved and protected you the most and instead have been to blame for hurting you all in the worst way. I hope these users and abusers of love get all the pain and suffering they deserve for hurting you all. I hope you can find a way to have closure to these horrible relationships, because it may not be that no one else is trying to get in it may be that you don't realize that a better person for you is right there but you are so wrapped up in these bad people that you can't experience a good thing staring you right in the face. So please tear down your fortress, because like that lady on the kay jewelry commercial said only when your heart is open can you let love in.

Lex, know how you feel buddy, but keep at least one door open for someone new my friend, you never know she may be very close..