You get the love you think you deserve

It broke... I don't know how or when, but one day I woke up and it was broken. Trust. When trust is broken everything else rots. It rots and it turns to dust and disappears.

That day I woke up different. I woke up and a tiny piece of my former self screamed so loud it sent shivers down my spine and I knew. I knew I had to leave. That tiny piece of my former self showed me I was a shell, a ghost, no longer myself. But that's what I do. I become who they all want me to be. Somewhere along our adventure I forgot to keep myself in check. I spent years trying to find myself only to stuff all of who I was into a teeny-tiny box in the back recesses of my mind. But that morning, as soon as I opened my eyes I knew I had to leave, I had to get my soul back.

I had stopped being who I was: I stopped writing. I no longer sang or listened to music. I stopped buying books and I didn't read anymore. I was a zombie you used whenever you felt like and when you were done, I would sit on the coach watching you play your fucking stupid games. And I sat there and thought of nothing. I sat there and slowly drained myself of everything I ever was until I was empty.

That morning, I opened my eyes and decided to leave, It was my first thought for the day. I could no longer be an empty shell. I planned my escape and then I got the call... my mother's cousin, the man who raised me had died. He died of cancer. I cried all afternoon. You tried your best to comfort me but after a few minutes everything went back to being all about you. What you wanted, what you needed - fuck everything and everyone else. You took, and took, and took... You took all of me and gave none of yourself. All you gave me where drunken drug induced "I love you". For a while, they meant the world to me, they made me feel special. But that morning, the tiny voice of my former self screamed, and I realized I fucking deserve better! I deserve to be loved for who I am. I deserve to be told "I love you" by someone who is not shit-faced drunk or completely baked. Then I remembered... "you get the love you think you deserve". And for so long I thought so little of myself, that I let myself fall in love with someone like you. I am so angry at myself. It's not your fault. I knew early on how and what you were, but I stayed. That's on me and I am sorry.

That night, after I mourned the person who took care of me for several years, I devised my escape plan. You swore you'd go into rehab. You didn't. I left. I never heard from you again.

And now... now I sit here alone. Writing this. Because I have finally gathered the courage to start being myself again. And this is who I am. People will try to break me, and they might take me down for a while, but I will always rise up. I will always wake up one morning and open my eyes to the truth. You get the love you think you deserve. I think I deserve to love myself...