“I don’t know how you do it.”
“I wish I could be more like you.”
“I can’t wait until I am where you are.”
I have heard these things so many times
that if I had as many dimes…
Well, I’d have a lot of dimes.
Instead, I create clever rhymes,
string together pretty lines
and hope someday you’ll feel the way
you think you’re meant to.
Hope someday you’ll read
all the pretty words I sing
and become everything you were meant to be
but I’ve begun to believe
my pretty words don’t mean a thing.
That they fall on deaf ears,
because no one wants to hear
all the work it takes,
how many hearts it breaks,
and how deeply it aches.
To do it the way I do,
to be the way I be,
to see everything I need to do.
To overcome the gravity
pulling me down deep
with every labored breath I breathe.
No, the way is not easy.
The way is nauseating.
Pushing through the discomfort
of being present
productive
not self-destructive
like I always have been.
And I am rewriting the pathways in my brain,
the epicenter of my pain.
Yes, I have caused my own pain.
The same way you do.
The voices in my head are mine alone,
not owned by those I claim broke me,
beat
tortured
and choked me
because long after they left me
bruised
battered
and empty
I became my own bully
to fill the void they left in me
because I refused to believe
that self-love could heal me.
How selfish could I be
that I could not see
my pain is my responsibility?
No one owes me anything.
I am owed no apology.
Except, maybe, to myself.
You can find "Pretty Apologies" in my book, Flames Speak. Buy here.
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