I survived the storm

I never thought love could be a form of bullying until I met you

    The words felt so true coming out of your mouth

We were inseparable until you decided I wasn’t enough for you

     I will never forget the day when everything went south between us

It all started as a joke until the words started feeling true

     Somehow you’ve managed to make me feel useless like a balloon without air

It was never your actions; your words pulled me in

     And I never questioned it until I felt like I was suffocating in

           the rusty old little box in the corner of your mind

The name callings, the jokes with your friends about how clingy I was

      The constant need to call me worthless, ugly, and stupid after the emptied bottles of whiskey

I stayed because I thought maybe one day everything would go back to the way they were, you loved me once before I thought

                             you could do it again if I was a little more patient

        I was gullible and naïve back then

I didn’t know that love wasn’t supposed to hurt

     I didn’t know that I could survive past the deep depression stage you put me through

I didn’t know that I could piece it all back together just for the sake of breathing one more time

    I have to be honest; I didn’t know Band-Aids and crazy glue could put it all together once more after being broken so many times

                               It wasn’t much help but I managed

Just like I managed to get up in the morning after the thunder storm the night before

     I used to think my being afraid of thunder storms wasn’t such a bad thing because you were there to hold me through it all,

                                  until you became the lightning and thunder in the rain dancing on the roof of my heart and mind every night

      I found a way to stay above water even though I felt like giving in to it every time it tried to pull me in

Someone asked me what I would say to you if I were to see you again, or bump into you in the streets.

     I had to think about it because I held everything about us in

I had to find an answer that would let you know that you didn’t win, that all of the things you did to me didn’t kill me

       It took me a while to answer, but I looked at her and said

    “if I were to see him again, I would tell him he didn’t win, I didn’t break, I got stronger and I survived storm."