This is how you’re going to heal.
You’re going to prolong walking away from a man you know isn’t capable of loving you in the way you deserve. You’re going to cry. And you’re going to beg. And you’re going to become a shell of a human being for someone who leaves bruises beneath your skin, not with his hands, but with the words “*****” and “insecure”.  He’s going to kick your front door down when he comes home too drunk and you’re going to pretend he’s not just like your Father. You’re going to hold his head up while he pushes you off of him to make sure he can breathe, and you’re going to look at his phone to find the name of another woman while you’re carrying him to your bed. You’re going to break. And you’re going to tell him you’re leaving while you’re secretly praying he asks you to stay. And he will, because he always does, and you’re going to leave anyway.
This is how you’re going to heal.
You’re going to bubble wrap your vases and fold your winter coats with a knot in your throat. You’re going to call your mother crying; telling her you’re coming home. You’re going to tell her and all of your friends about the peace you have now with a pit in your stomach, hoping if you repeat the words enough you’ll believe them. Peace. Peace. Peace. What he never gave you. Safe. I want to feel safe. I don’t feel safe with him or without him. I feel safer here.
This is how you’re going to heal.
You’re going to let another man touch you because maybe they’ll erase the tattoos his mouth left on your body. Maybe if you transform into the “cool” girl no one can ever hurt you. Maybe if enough people tell you you’re ****, and smart, and too good for him you’ll start to feel like you haven’t lost anything at all. The problem is it isn’t him that you lost. It’s all the little pieces of yourself you’re trying to reignite, it’s the broken parts of you that entangled with the broken parts of him. But the broken parts of you don’t hurt the people they’re supposed to love. And another man’s hands aren’t going to rip into your skin and put stitches in the places you let him in. So you’re going to be lonely. And this is how you’re going to heal.
You’re going to fall back into him, maybe more than once. Because when you’re not with him you’re romanticizing him and that’s a habit harder to break than you originally thought. Because you’ll see him, and he’ll feel so good. In the middle of all his longing, in the way he looks at you. And then he’ll yell at you and curse at you and you’ll realize he hasn’t changed at all. He’s not going to change. Men like that don’t change. It’s okay that it took you longer than you hoped to figure this out. This time might hurt more than the first. It’s the release of hope, the release of the last sliver of you that thought there might be a life where you work out. There’s not. This is heartbreak. And it is raw and real and ugly and it feels like your bones are breaking with no one watching.
This is how you’re going to heal.
You’re going to be alone and it is going to feel like coming up for air. You’re going to listen to the music you used to love and write words that slowly heal you. You’re going to find pieces of yourself you had buried to appease him. You’re going to light candles in your bedroom and fall asleep without wondering what bed he lies in. And in time you’ll realize you hardly think of him at all. The bitterness within you quietly releases itself as you realize his inability to love you well has nothing to do with your worthiness, and everything to do with the demons within him he refuses to face. You cannot heal someone that doesn’t want to be healed. You cannot love someone into becoming the potential you see in them. And that is okay.
This is how you’re going to heal.