This is how you quit hiding. This is how you do that scary thing you only whisper to yourself when the shadows of midnight are your cover. This is how you quit being someone who accepts insult and disrespect and turns it into fuel for the journey to redemption.

This is how you quit looking at yourself with the same contempt that you hear in the voices of those who are supposed to love you. The same people who demand respect for themselves and won’t give it to you until you grab them by the nuts and squeeze. Yes, those people.

This is how you lift your head and look yourself in the eye and say “fuck you” to anyone who tries to tread on you while you fight your way out. This is how you lose friends you don’t need, and create an open space for people with spine and courage to come rest with you when you stop to breathe.

This is how you make it through the jagged edges of your own bullshit and throw yourself on the ground of the truth you were never willing to see until now. Go ahead, roll onto your back and look up at a sky you haven’t seen as you inhale the possibilities. Count the stars as you dream, watch them as they shoot across the sky and fall. Feel the wind of everything whispering at the edges of your mind for a chance to grow. Take in the feeling of the grass at your back supporting you like the certainty burning in your gut right now.

I didn’t know what it felt like until now, did you?

This is how you finally break the destructive pattern of giving pieces of your heart and soul that you will never get back to those who are too blinded by their own damage to love anyone.  They are not capable of seeing, accepting or thriving in the love burning you from the inside out.

This is how you say, “I love you, but you can’t stop yourself from trying to bury me in your own damage, so I have to step away”. This is how you say “I am here anytime you need me to hold you or help you move forward, but no more games”. This is how you say “I love you, but you’ll speak to me with integrity and respect, or not at all”. This is how you can look yourself in the eye every morning in the mirror.

The other option is shame and sorrow, which I personally have lived with for too long and do not recommend. When you look at yourself with the same disgust that you hear in the voices of those who say they love you, it is time to take yourself outside and kick your own ass.

Nobody is going to save you. You are all you’ve got.

So let me recap. No matter now badly we were treated, we thought even less of ourselves than those who smacked us down. No matter how much we want to love and be loved, allowing disrespect to build another’s broken self esteem is unacceptable.  Stop the lies you tell yourself. They don’t love you, you just make them feel powerful. They don’t need you, you’re just convenient. They don’t respect you and you hear and see it daily until you WALK AWAY.

WALK AWAY, MY DARLING HEART .

I am here. I am the sky, the stars, the wind and the grass at your back supporting you. I have been there, I may still be there now to welcome you. I am fighting my way out and away from those who would build themselves an empire of our shattered bones, broken spines and torn hearts. I am fighting. Every day means change if you just have the courage to take one step.

One step can be the difference between living or dying for your love, hope, soul and dream.

This is the way. Be afraid. Do it anyway. I believe in you. I believe in me.

Let it be written.