You made me hollow.

You took away the me that I could have been and tried to replace her with the me you thought I should be.

But I’m not her.

You may have stolen my insides and stuffed me with death and rot, but you did not destroy me.

It hurt, it still hurts sometimes, to feel the phantom of a future unrealized, but I persevere.

I was robbed, emptied, and left to live like that. Uneven. Never whole. Broken.

But I found out,

I could change that.

So I filled myself with flowers and clouds and packed in the spaces with laughter and rain.

I filled myself with endless dreams and glimmers of hope everlasting.

I grew. My flowers became a garden. My clouds became the very sky above my head. My laughter echoes life eternal and my rain became an ocean deeper than any man will ever see.

I am alive. I am alive and beautiful and wonderful and everything.

I.

Am.

Everything.