I’ve said it before but, I need to find out what unconditional love looks like. What is the balance between allowing cruelty into our lives, and supporting someone who is broken?

I would have died for you.

So how can I walk away now if that’s true?

I WOULD have died for you. But if the hands that are so tightly wrapped around my throat, squeezing tighter every second that I refuse to move, if those hands belong to you?

Then I will fight for MY life.

And in my future moments, in my mind, in my heart,

you will be the one who’s dead.

I would have died for you. But that doesn’t mean that you were special. There was never anything special about your love. You were the epitome of basic. You lived for the satisfaction of a strangers validation even when it was based on a mask you created out of protection, but never could seem to take off. A typical, weak man who feels strength from the destruction of others. You never held any power over me. Not really. You never even came close to being strong enough to overcome me, and at the end, you despised me for it. It was never you who in control, even if I thought you were for a long time. My love is what kept me there. My ability to fight for, and see the good in things so, utterly pathetic. Like picking the ugly, scrawny dog at the shelter because you just want to show it the love you assume it’s never had. Because I believed in your potential. Because I loved you.

But that love was never meant for someone like you. You decided to use that belief to convince yourself you are better than you are. To convince yourself that you actually had the right to do the things you did. Should I count myself lucky that I was the only one who got to see what was underneath that mask that has blended seamlessly into who you actually are?

I should have left you in that cage to rot, alone and discarded.

Rest in peace to who you could have been, but never will.

Your hands will never come near my neck again.

I choose to live.