I have spent the last nine months looking for myself Because the previous three years I only years I only ever looked to you We bonded over our broken souls Exposed scars no one else would understand And you never questioned when the childhood trauma came knocking on my door You told me about your manic bipolar mother I told you about my schizophrenic father And we built our relationship off false hopes of one day creating the family we never had For someone who has lived the same life as I, I thought you would be more careful with your words But every compliment you gave me was just implanted for future manipulation Looking back, I wanted to believe that you meant it when you said you loved me, that you thought we would grow old together, that our “children” would have two loving parents and everything they’d ever need. But as I look back, everything you did was to get me to only see my future in you To only have opinions that coincide with yours I didn’t even know that self-affirmation was an option Because you became the puppet master of my existence It wasn’t until life slapped me in the face that my eyes finally opened and I could see you for the first time I told you that I was three weeks late and reality seeped into both of our bones You told me you weren’t ready to be a father That you’d never want to have my children That I was ruining your life One pregnancy scare, asking you to put your words into action, and you walk away. I didn’t know who I was without you But I promised myself that I would never let you back into my life. My new years resolution was to discover myself And how to be happy on my own I traveled the world I journeyed to twelve different countries And as I saw inherent beauty in everything around me, my problems became so small When I was overseas you asked me how I was You offered an apology and said you wanted to see me The only thing that kept me from you was the five thousand miles between us But the distance allowed me to say no, something I had never done before I’m not sure if I’d have the strength to do it again, but I found a piece of myself, and that’s improvement.