When You Forget

When you forget what you have fought so hard for.

The hope, the dreams — they start to fade away like a dream.

It’s like I can’t breathe, it’s like I scream to the top of my lungs, God please take this pain away.

People hurt me so bad that the dream of love disappeared; it went away like it will never reappear.

Fighting to hold my head up, only to see that I was drowning this whole time.

USERS, ABUSERS, UNAVAILABLE MEN, PEOPLE WITH EGOS, COWARDS — all of them I had, and I thought that was all I was going to attract.

The trauma that these men put on me made me feel like I was less than.

Made me question if it was me, not them, only to find out that they were just using that to disguise what they truly was.

I almost killed myself — I truly did.

I almost did, but I pulled myself back in.

I looked at my health condition and said: How can I be with someone who doesn’t see me when I tell them the truth within?

Carrying something that has no cure but the way I am talked about, looked at, made me feel like my worth was at the end of a stick and they walked around with it like it was nothing to them.

But for me, it was all I could see — the shame that was in me.

Sure, love yourself like all the health books, all the YouTube help videos, and all the people who just said “believe in it and it will happen, and the person will not care.”

But you have to understand that in the beginning, everyone will care.

So my heart beats fast, and my anxiety braces for impact only to see if my heart can breathe if you only would accept me.

I know I shouldn’t hope so deep, but the fear — the fear — it is so high in me that if you deny me, it is one more wound that affects me.

Fighting to be seen, and fighting to be heard, and fighting to be loved all in one time, all in one moment — is it going to happen this time?

The trauma is so deep that love is now disappearing, and I am forgetting what it looks like.

No, I never had it, so…

It would be hope that I feel..

But just like The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live, ep. 4, I realized that the love I hoped for disappeared from my mind, and I am lost just like that moment in that show.

But then I realized that “Just a little while longer” didn’t mean I didn’t give up on love.

It meant I was so exhausted that I couldn’t, even if I tried.

But when I saw that show, I realized that somewhere — somewhere out there — someone is looking for me.

And the words “Just a little while longer” will flicker the blown-out flame that has dust on it from the rain.

As I hold my phone and cry, I look at myself and say:

I may have forgotten, I may have given up, but just a little while longer — hold on just a little while longer — don’t give up. And I close my eyes and see him come for me. I’m going to hold on even if the flame is almost gone. When he comes he will light the way to safety and lean over and say:

"Baby let me light your fire..."

As he kisses me finally.