"Hero"

She observes the room around her. 

Teenage girls describing what boys did to break their hearts. 

She says nothing.  

Everything he did comes to the surface of her mind–

Her lips remain closed. 

He didn’t break up with her. 

He didn’t cheat on her. 

In a way, perhaps. 

But he didn’t do anything they would deem “painful.”

So she feels like her feelings are not justified. 

And keeps them to herself. 

Don’t tell anyone what you feel–

There’s nothing they can do to fix it. 

A lonely place to be, 

But that’s how it’s been her whole life. 

Always around others, but always alone. 

Don’t bother others with your sadness. 

So she buries it deep. 

They don’t know how much it hurts. 

They don't care how much it hurts. 

Because her heart didn’t break because of a teenage boy. 

It broke even before she became a teenager. 

To no fault of her own. 

Simply because the one person who was supposed to be her hero—

Never even tried to save her.

That’s when she stopped believing in fairytales. 

Sometimes we see the villains first as heroes– 

Creating false realities of who we wish they were–

Only to realize they were the ones who caused the destruction to begin with. 

The walls fell but she figured out how to save herself. 

But a nine-year-old shouldn’t be the protector of her own story. 

And a “father” should never be the first one to break a child’s heart.