You know, I thought if I just kept writing about my pain

That the pain would get better

That I would get better

That maybe by sharing my hurt

I wouldn’t hurt anymore

But the truth is that

poetry doesn’t make it hurt any less

It just puts the hurt on a new canvas

And calls it art

On a paper or the walls

Or in the safety of my notes app

But that doesn’t mean it goes away

And maybe you can forget it for a while

Or maybe you can cry until the words become smudges on the paper

and you have to write it again,

But no one ever said you couldn’t write the poems again.

So here I am

writing again for myself this time

And not writing for you

Or any of the other people who have hurt me

Though I doubt they'd remember me anyway

Because they never really remember

You see we only remember the times we’ve been wronged

So we rarely recall the ways we’ve wrong others

And I suppose that’s for our survival

To remember the pains and the poisons

To avoid ever repeating the same mistakes

But that doesn’t keep me from wanting to repeat them anyways.

At least sometimes

Wanting to remember the soft touch of their lips or to the feeling of their hands in mine

Or the way their laugh could light up a room like sunrise

But then I remember how generic all those things really were

How any man can hold my hand if they want to

How any man can kiss my lips if I let them

And how any laugh can light up a room when you are in love with their light.

So maybe I was in love

But I’ll never admit it now

And just like how the guilt of my own careless existence sends shivers down my pencil

So too does the pain of knowing I deserved better.

I am tired of breaking off pieces of myself to fix the broken in someone else

I am building my own temple this time

My own marble kingdom

On my own solid ground

And perhaps I’ll have to tear down my history first

Tear down the foundations of the person I used to be

In this decrepit brick apartment

On the precarious edge of a mental breakdown.

Shed the skin of the person I used to be

No matter how much it hurts

No matter the blood or the tears

No matter how vulnerable it makes me feel

Shedding the layers like lobsters, and crabs, and lizards, and snakes.

We are most vulnerable when we’ve let go of our past.

But it’s only to prepare for how strong we are ready to become.

Which is all to say

This is only the beginning