You may not be able to control the way you feel or react in regards to specific things but you can alter your level of engagement with it.

Focus not on what could’ve been or what was but instead where you are now.

The should’ve, could’ve, would’ve is not at all conducive to your actuality. It’s not going to change the outcome.

Just because your feelings were hurt doesn’t mean you were wronged.

You can be right or you can be effective.

Sometimes you are a villain and perpetrator of harm.

It’s okay to be the bad guy in some people’s recollections.

Engage with your wants and desires in a way that is not detrimental to you.

Believe people until they give you a reason not to.

Don’t engage in discourse with people who are committed to misunderstanding you.

Sometimes a persons behavior has nothing to do with you but everything to do with who they are. Don’t take it personally. Move on accordingly.

I’ve waited my entire life for this grudge against you to become undone.
Yet every attempt to reconcile the past doings with the present circumstances is met with another unforgivable happening taking place in a real time.
Positioning me further away from you
Caught between meeting your level of escalation and

Echoing the following sentiments to myself:
“stop taking it personal, it’s who they are"
Over and over and over.

And I’m only left to remember what you’ve done to me.
And how burdened your mere presence makes me feel.

I can only imagine how burdened you feel too.
Far before you were a villain in my recollections
You were a victim in your own right.

It may be true that you are not the worst of what you’ve done
But you sure do bring out the worst in me.

Oh, the grueling beauty of duality and multiple truths existing at once.

You feel my heart with contentment
And my mind with ease.
You possess a heart of pure, untainted gold.
A smile brighter than any sun I’ve ever seen during the afternoon in the middle of June.
And the healing powers of a God.
To know you is to love you.
It is with immense pleasure that I am able to live in a moment where those dual truths exist.

I’d give you the world if I could.
But it’s far too imperfect for your precious hands to hold.
So for now my heart will have to do.
It’s in the process of healing and skipping a beat too many, just for you.

I wish loving you in the ways you deserve was as easy as loving you in general.
The love that I have for you is nothing in comparison to the ways that I could illustrate them.
The ways that I could enact them for you without fear, because you are the only member in the audience.
Beaming with pride and satisfaction. Applauding my efforts to do right by you.
Because I would love nothing more than to perform for you with Boundless Love as my co-star.

People congratulated me and I felt displaced because I had no business at this affair.
This was no feat. No accolade. Nothing to celebrate.
They congratulated me and every time they did it made you a little more alive. A little more human. A little more of a blessing, and not the worst possible thing that could ever happen to me.
And I hated every minute of it.
Because everyday that I was forced to allow you to grow, I felt myself shrinking as I grew more detached from my own body.
Every attempt to nourish myself turned into a regurgitation session.
Of my meals.
Of my pride.
Of my strength.
And some wanted me to feel guilty because I didn’t desire to gift you with life.
To be your mother.
But my love, it wasn’t you.
It was everything that happened before you that left me on the edge of my bed crying at the thought of being unable to love you in the fashion that you deserved.
So that’s why we can’t be together. At least not now.
But if given the chance again, after my wounds aren’t so fresh And there’s nothing left but healed scars to tell my story... I’d bleed myself dry for you instead of bleeding you out.

If I told you I knew how this would end, what would you believe me to be?
A psychic?
A realist?
A pessimist?

What if I told you I’m simply just cursed with the inability to love without conditions?

I got it from my momma.
Who got it from her momma.
And so on...