I grew up losing most of my childhood.
In more ways than one.

After eleven,
nothing was ever the same.

No matter how positive I tried to be,
no matter how often I wished otherwise,
my path felt stolen. Still does.                    

Stolen by my body most of all.                                             Far too young,
but also stolen by others.

How could I have understood
what was happening?

What was coming?
At any age for that matter?
But especially then?

Maybe before that loss
there were carefree moments?
Years, days, thoughts;
but were they real?
Or were they memories my mind softened
to survive?

Self-preservation.
Survival.

I’ve spent so much of my life
trying to create and find insight
out of everything that happened to me.

And sometimes that ability is not a strength.

So much of life, is
just what it is.
Simple as that.

Insight has tricked me.
Fooled me.
Held me hostage
more times than I can admit;
to anyone.

Lately, I see something clearly:
it was and isn’t me. Not always.
Not in the way I’ve assumed,
or the way some people have insisted.
I’m not to blame for everything.
Not for all of it.

Not in the ways any of them say.

So why am I so quick
to believe the voices that tell me
it’s only me?

Logically, I know that isn’t true.
Well not to the degree they argue,
berate, or assume.
So why is my memory of my own life
treated as unreliable?
Why am I so easily second-guessed?
Has my mind, or the people around me,
ever been proven right over me?

I feel foolish.

It’s been a long time
since I felt this way.
And this deep.

Like the feeling built a place inside me
and quietly called it home.
I know why it’s surfaced now.
People you expect disappointment from
hurt less.

They refuse to see you,
and it’s familiar.
But the ones you hoped for,
the ones you believed were different,
they hurt the most.

You convince yourself
you don’t see the ending coming.
Even though it always does.

Hope keeps you alive.
It is beautiful.

But what few admit,
is that hope is also dangerous.

One of the most dangerous things there is.

A contradiction.
A huge one.
Because when you see growth in someone;
real change,
real effort,
real warmth,
something so soulful in them.

Especially in their eyes.

Then they turn into someone else,
someone colder, darker,
someone who wounds you so badly.

It cuts deeper
than all the blunt cruelty you expected from others.

Because you didn’t just hope for them,
You trusted them. That’s rare for you most of all.

You gave them a rare kind of faith.
The kind of faith you always struggle to offer and struggle even more to believe.

You know you could never receive  that in a million years.

And losing that,
hurts more than almost anything.

Anything.