I lost myself in you because it was easy to do. When the world was silent and cold, I turned to you for solace and comfort. You seemed reliable and stable in my world of erratic instability. You gave me an escape from the pain in, on, and around me.
I worshiped you, longed for you, ran into your arms without seeing what it cost me to serve you.
You cost me myself. The more intimate I became with you the less I felt. In numbing myself with your anesthetic, I lived without living. My body orbited in its usual spaces as expected. My mind somersaulted with ruminations, but never ruminations about all you were doing to me. Who could see what you were doing to me when there was so much you were doing for me too?
I ran to you for help and you groomed me for hurt. We both benefited from what I was running from — I by blocking it and you by using it to exploit me. But the incessant drip of the reason for my running never left me. It walked with me in whispers by day and slept with me in song by night. All the while my unforgiving-never-forgetting body carried all I was running from. Escape was but a wistful illusion.
You and I were one, until I let go of the idea of us and faced the reality of us. Saying goodbye to you, my love, was beyond hard. I had to imagine life without you, knowing all of my life was centered around you — your desires and wishes for me, my desires and wishes for you. Next, I had to count the cost of remaining with you — being alive for you and dead to me. In some ways it was easier to die to a me I didn’t know. How could I know her when she was crowded out of us? But I was curious about her and I set out to discover her.
In finding her, I found love. She was frail and fragile from the pressures in, on, and around her. But her spirit was fierce. She felt. The feeling, at first, flushed over me like ocean waves. My tears poured like waterfalls for all the lies I believed. My sobs soared like thunder for what could have been. With reflection, I passed the past like kidney stones. Dying to you was as cleansing as raindrops.
I thanked you for your inextricable part in my journey. I angered about the hurt you inflicted. I apologized for allowing you to reign for so long. Then, I dethroned and released you from that uplifted idolatrous place I’d placed you. It was time to redeem myself, to escape you for solace and comfort you promised but never could deliver.