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I know brave one.

I know 11 betrayed your trust

I know 12 broke your body

I know 13 cracked your heart

I know brave one.

I know how hard you try even so.

I know how you wipe your nose and your eyes and straighten your shirt to look less on the outside how you feel on the inside.

I know how hard you work to stop your lower lip from quivering when you feel emotions that are bigger than you are, that could fill the sky.

I know brave one; I know.

I know how hard you try to be strong; sometimes so hard that you convince yourself that the angry person in the mirror is you.

I know how cruel the world can be and how your soft petals have been torn from your rose colored heart

I know my love.

I know that you can’t see me right now

I know that you  you can’t hear my voice

But I’m right here beside you.

My arm is around your shoulder.

You are not alone.

You’ve never been alone.

Even in the darkest moments where they tore at your hair, your clothing, your soul

I know you think they took things from you that you can’t get back.

I know.

It’s ok brave one.

There’s no shame here.

No need to hide your face, to bury your tears

I know the places you’ve been, the things you’ve done

I know everything you’ve done.

And I love you all the more for it

I know the wall you’ve built.

I know the chains you’ve fashioned.

I know.

I know the love that you’re looking for, to make you feel better, to feel whole.

I know how you long for it, crave it.

And I know that the more you look for it the further away it seems to be.

I know.

You are not alone.  

Each of our stories is different, and yet they are the same.

Our young hearts have all been twisted.

Our soft parts have all been scarred.

I wish that I could scoop you up in all those moments and hold you close to me no matter what they were doing

You are brave my little one.

Brave to have come here at all, to have agreed to live this life, to take these beatings for us all.

And  if you could see yourself clearly you’d cry at the depth of your own beauty and
Shade your eyes from the shimmer of your light.

You’d be devastated by your own depth and strength

You’d be even braver than you already are.

I know brave one.

And one day perhaps you will love you the way that I do, for I am you.  

And I love you Unconditionally.

I made you something you’re not.

I made you sweeter than you were, like summer rain or springs’ blossom.

I’ve made you something you weren’t.

I made you honest.

I made you the victim of circumstance.

I made you beautiful inside and out.  

And if the light revealed cracks in your plaster, I turned them off.

I made you something you’re not.

I made the worst parts of you my fault.

I made your responsibilities into something they’re not; I made them mine.

I made your intentions pure.

I made you kind.  

I built an illusion and let myself believe it to be real.

You let me make you these things; knowing that you were not.

You could not help yourself; I understand.

I taught you the notes to play to make my heart open, even though the song was never yours.  

I made you play it and you obliged.

I made you something you’re not.

I made you into the lover, pushing past the furthest boundaries.

I made you good for me.

I made you right for me.

I made the lies you told into truth.

I dismissed the warnings.

I dismissed reality in favor of the most compelling of dreams and hid in the shadow of the nightmare to stay asleep.

I made you into something you’re not.

Perfect for me.

Kind to me.

Honest with me.

I made you into my ocean and swam your depths.

I made you into my safe harbor, even as the waves battered my boat at your dock.

I let you hope that I would swim too deep, that I would get caught on an ancient shipwreck, moored to you forever.

The darkest part of me was hoping for the same; for choice to be removed, to be bound to you.

Intentionally unwittingly.

I let you take from me.

I let you drink from me until it was no longer safe; and knowing it was no longer safe, your sunk your teeth deeper and you drank deeper still.

I don’t blame you.

I am slowly waking up.

I made you into something you’re not.

I am to blame.

I loved you; I love you.

I loved and love the you that there isn’t, that there never was.

I made you into something you’re not.

I made you into something you never were.

I made you into something you will never be.

I made you mine.