You have said a lifetime's worth of, "I love you" in the last ten months I remember that you rarely said it in the twenty-three years When I needed to hear it like my blood needed oxygen What am I to do with your, "I love you" now Now that I cannot love you anymore Oh! My heart still loves you Still wrings drops of hope from itself Hope hanging heavy from tear tracts To be wiped bitterly away Because there is no hope left Hope is just a tether Preventing me from moving on From acknowledging the truth that The third body is dead and has been for a long time Love's hope nearly destroyed me Consumed me My heart will not let me pry this foolish hope from her hands So instead, I have to lock it away In the dark, cold, empty cavity that is my chest Heart unable to comprehend that I do this for our own good It screams and howls in the echoing silence "One last chance!" "One more time!" "Maybe this time! Maybe! Just maybe!" "I love you" manifests no magic here "I love you" will not call forth a miracle for us I still love you, Too But I HAVE to love me, MORE
When you came into my life You promised to be my everything You destroyed everything instead My hopes My dreams My confidence My joy My ability to love you My ability to love me So I made sure to take everything When I left
Slow to emerge from the long shadows And still brushing off the cobwebs of shame, doubt, and fear I begin to wonder what awaits me Who awaits me
The question nauseates me I'm not ready to open my heart Nor do I expect to be ready any time soon And yet I find myself wondering Will there be another My heart fearfully whispering, "Will I get a second chance?"
I'm not ready to fall in love again I am only longing for the magic of falling The elation that comes from feeling seen Feeling chosen Because all I wanted for so long Was to feel chosen To be enough
I am working to remember how to love me How to be enough for myself How to appreciate my perfect imperfections How to forgive the choices I made to survive I must become reacquainted with me
My future is tabula rasa Full of possibilities Bursting with opportunity to craft a life I want to live And blessed with time to heal from a life I endured I embrace my next chapter gratefully Even as my knees quake with each step forward
My blank slate has its first word: freedom Its second word: peace I think that's a beautiful place for a new story to start
I have been asked If I thought I didn't deserve better If I thought I couldn't have better If I thought he was the best I could do NO I knew I deserved better I knew I was worth better I knew I could have better I was in love I believed my relationship Could become better Would become better I just had to wait and believe I clung to breadcrumbs While my soul starved I believed in a dream Long past its expiration date I held onto hope Even when the nightmares Haunted the wakeful day I had to do everything I could Until it became undeniably clear There was nothing else I could do When it was clear it was him and not me I had shown up Put the work in Tried and cried and tired again And he wouldn't meet me He couldn't accept responsibility for his part He wouldn't do the work He wanted me to keep changing Transforming Making myself less so he could be more Smaller More compliant Less of a person More of a puppet A Stepford Wife That could never please him anyway I knew that my luminescence was what drew him to me My shine was acceptable then My shine is acceptable now Just not to him I knew love shouldn't feel like this Be like this Behave like this Hurt like this Love does not bully Love does not belittle Love does not plot against the one it adores Love does not manipulate or blame Love does not destroy others to make itself feel powerful My hope became my prison An escape room I allowed to be created around me I found myself trapped in its ever shifting walls It would take time It would take opportunity It would take all the courage I had to leave To choose me And to not look back I do deserve better And reclaiming myself Is where I start to create better
This above all To thine own self be true But damn Is that a hard thing to do I want to hold To my own principles To set firm my jaw And without a pause Hold firm the ground I'm planted upon But when I say no You refuse to move on Turning my insides Upside and down Knitting my eyebrows And causing a frown Why is honoring me Such an ask It's not like I'm begging Some outrageous task I'm asking for only Mutual respect Yet you recoil As if you were decked Leaving me feeling Like I've caused you harm While my heart is rattling My chest in alarm Now I'm a monster For making my needs A priority which Leaves you aggrieved One day soon I will disavow Ownership of What's forced on me now I will figure out how To my own self be true And with peace in my heart I will leave you
Holding hands in matching rockers Laughing about when we were young You reminiscing about record stores and ska shows As I tell our grandchildren tales of magic Spending our sunset days in loving conversations Each other's best bestie Strolling into the ever after that follows the happily
Words Wishes and Wisdom 