To forget is not to heal.
You must stare in the face whatever unmade you, face it, live with it.
It must be your shadow,
Tap you on the shoulder throughout your day,
Tangle in your feet as you climb the stairs,
Curl up with you at night when you sleep.
You must learn to make a space for it.
You must touch it, force yourself to sidle closer,
Grit your teeth and refuse to cringe away.
You must make friends with pain.
It doesn't flee the way people say it does.

Maybe it does for some, but not for me.
Do I beg it to stay? Of course not.
But it does.
And it will.
And it is braver to try to look at it without flinching than it is to cower and pretend it doesn't exist
Even when it prowls in the corners of my vision.
Would you think to assume that everyone feels in the same way?
The way we experience emotion is perhaps the most unique thing about us,
For the degree of difference between people is staggering.
The universal things like suffering are made utterly individual by our reactions, our coping mechanisms, and how long they last.
Guess what? Some people hurt forever.
But that does not mean we have to suffer forever.
It only means that we need to take the long road, shake hands with agony, and learn to live with our crippling loves.
To look away,
To run with it nipping at my heels forever,
To hide in the dark and never face the truth
Would be no way to exist.
To forget is NOT to heal.
To forget is only weakness, and vulnerability.
Scars mean, "I survived."
Reminders of the wounds are shrines to time lost, to life changed, to things learned.
To forget would only mean to walk into the same massacre masked by a different face.
And people like me? We don't survive things twice.
It may take years, absurdly.
But I will do this right, and when it is done I will not be repeating my pain.
After all, there are so many ways in which I HAVEN'T hurt yet.
They really should have a turn,
For if life is sprinkled with suffering,
At least switch up the style.