There was a world of curiosity in her eyes for a soul that never speaks unless spoken to, because childhood taught her to be quiet. There was so much love in her smile for a heart that never felt it growing up. Generosity in her actions and kindness in her words. And the truth of it reeks in the air like a thick fog made up of smog from their lies and betrayals. A scared and battered girl, hiding behind a mask of charismatic grace. But inside she’s angry, and there is no pride in the thoughts that she had while she was healing. Still reeling from her traumatic childhood, still faltering from the blows she took and took and took until they just stopped coming. Because one day she had awoken. Like the sun in the east burning everything in her path, a feast of destruction in her wake awakening the beast inside her. Fire raging through the cities of deceit you sowed, the lies and the abuse for which there was no excuse. And I kept all the receipts for the prices I paid in flesh and blood, that took my soul away. Chipping and chipping until you’ve ripped the shield around it. Gripping the ledge I’ve been pushed off of, at the edge of life and death and wrong and right but not an end in sight, but no. I was wrong, I was the one who didn’t belong and that thrilled you to your core. So let it burn, every lie every hit and every time he looked at me, let it burn. 

Burn to the ground surrounded by chaos, until I’m rising. Rising like a Pheonix from the ashes, and what I’ve become far surpasses what you little you expected from me. So let it be the reminder binding you from ever touching my light again. Neglected and forgotten, I was rotting to my core. And I swore that I would never become what you said I would. And I wish you could see the way I’ve grown, flowers bursting through the ashes reaching for the sun. And I run and I run until I get to the source, and of course it was you. For 30 years I waited, for 30 years I suffered at my own hand for accepting less than I was worth. But to you I am everything someone should want, to love as we do. For love is peculiar, so familiar to your wavelength, yet something so new. And we grew, as we continue to do so. Flowers blooming at the heart of it all, such a small epicenter of grief and mourning, yet from the dust and decay grew beauty. And it is our universal duty to love each other as one another so here we are. Loving on purpose.