I CARRY YOU WITH ME

I will carry you with me everyday for the rest of my life. I fought it at first, but I have to accept it as a phase of life. No matter how hard I push away your memory, it remains seared in my mind. Even when the pain subsides and I drift into a peaceful haze, you are always there, in the back of my mind, waiting to pop up when I least want you to. You are the reason I can't sleep. The reason I wake up screaming. The reason I feel so alone. But at the same time, you gave me something nobody else could. You gave me a strength that I couldn't have gained any other way. Because of you, I have seen the worst parts of people, seen the worst of what humans are capable of. And I'm still here. Because of you, I am not afraid to stand up for what I believe in. Because of you, I can take risks, because I have nothing to lose. Because I have lost everything and came back. Because you did not kill me, you only made me stronger, and nobody will ever do to me what you did again. I am the bone that has been broken. At the very point where I was once weakest, I am now strongest. So thank you. I will hate you for the rest of my life with every fiber of my being, never doubt that. But you showed me what I am capable of, & if I ever start to doubt it, I only think of you. As much as it hurts, I will never let your memory leave me, because it makes me who I am. It gives me strength for myself and others, and that strength is not something I am willing to give up, even though it is tied to people I want so desperately to forget. You may have changed me, but I took that change & made it my own. I owned it and will continue to own it until there is not a single part of you left in it. Only me. You did not win. You will never win. You cannot break me.