Clandestine Confessions

I vividly remember the moment I recognized I was in an emotionally abusive relationship.

And I can painfully recall the moment I comprehended I was someone’s other woman.
The breakdowns that shattered my mind upon the revelations, the fragmented pieces inflicting deep wounds onto my heart.
Dreams once glimmering gold now covered in the shed blood.
The shame that suffocated the joy out of me.
A woman once abundantly alive now a shell of skin and bones.
You say “it will never be me” until it happens to you.
And then you do not even know how you got there.
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You try retracing your steps to see where you made the wrong turn.
But everything is hazy from the high of “love”…
Desperation will deceive you.
Passion will misdirect you.
Covetous will confuse you.
All of it disguised as your dreams…until you wake up to the realization your reality is your heart’s worst nightmare.
The beauty of the relationship only painted by your adoration; every lie, every manipulation, every betrayal eroding the pristine exterior.
Until all its true colors are exposed.
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And the mind will desperately attempt to cover it back up – an act of self preservation.
The heart will urgently beg for you to leave – also an act of self preservation.
And it will be up to you to decide which one is telling the truth.
Which one will actually save you.
And ironically enough, it is often the path that feels like dying that will be the one to eventually bring you back to life.
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I have spent the past two years and three months sitting in the many stages of grief from the tragic endings to love stories.
And I have tried so hard to not allow my heart to get jaded in the process.
To not let it get bitter.
Or resentful.
Or vow to close it off forever.
To not stop believing that love, the right love, will redeem and see you and make you better.

That not all love will hurt.
But will heal…
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The doubt is louder some days; a deafening scream today.
And I sit here in tears simply writing this to remind me of what is true.
To release the fear of what will never be and embrace the promise of what is to come.

There is still an unstolen speck of hopeless romantic in me that believes in happily ever after.

And I will continue to cling tightly to that little essence of faith until I see it accumulate into something tangible.

Until I see the purpose in the pain…