Abuse is funny and backwards in the way that the person, who supposedly cares, leaves your house in ruin; while you are left with the clean up of the mess they made in your home. Your space. Your heart.

To leave a mark, they carve their name into the walls. That's why there's a hole, where it used to be. I had to rip the infected flesh out of my heart, in order to live. Some may see a hole and think she is weak. Others will know and say, "She's a survivor."

Slowly killing myself each day to be the person I thought everyone wanted me to be. Now I feel as shallow as my grave. The one my persona dug. And I worry that when I look at the camera, people can see it. The old me I killed. That hides just beneath the surface, underneath what was supposed to be a temporary act, not a permanent play.

My grave. My obituary never saw the light of day.

And I fear the only one who grieved, was me.

It’s said people have a devil and an angel on their shoulder. If so, I’ve been cheated. All I have is a prison warden and an escape artist. A conformist and a revolutionary. And I am stuck in-between.

I’m neither one or the other. I am both and none. I don’t know what to make of myself. No one knows what to make of me either. I am stranded, alone, in a repeating battle.

Too often we allow ourselves to be captive by fear who tells us only lies. That keeps us imprisoned in the known, because all we ever know of the unknown are horror stories fear paints of them.

Why do we trust fear? Because if we didn’t, we would be responsible of our betterment and responsible for the difficult place we’re at.

And that’s a scary thing. Unless we realize what fear doesn’t want us to. That responsibility is the key to freedom.

The dragon I fought so many times, now defeated. My world seems to crumble. But when the fighting returns with my sense of purpose; I still grumble.

The war is over. It's time to start my own life, but it feels like it's ending. Who am I without the armor?...

I don't know what to be anymore.

No one needs a warrior any longer. No one needs the fighter I became to be stronger. And perhaps neither do I.