One Year Later

I’ve been working on who I am now for a year

I can’t sleep, I won’t eat, wait no, that’s where I used to be

I don’t know who I am right now.

I don’t know how to define this moment I am in.

My label used to simply be “not happy”

But I can’t use that any more

Things are different than before.

I know I am content

I am less not okay, and more unashamed

Thing is, I’m still not all okay or free of pain.

It still hurts when I look at my scars.

I still wince at the sight of the bars

where I know he used to drink

While everyone else was asleep.

Not me tho, not till he was home.

And laying on the same sheets where she had just cried an hour ago

Not until he kissed her fast asleep, rolled over and forgot what I never let the young ones see

But now that heat is not on me.

I’m thousands of miles away but still can’t sleep

I’m still worried. I still don’t eat.

And I know that I have to let them figure this out

They have to learn to fight less and love with no doubt

I also know that they won’t

Which means now the young ones are the new antidote

They have to be the ones to call a ceasefire

But they never learned, it was not required

I always did it, I should have taught them

Now they lack the tools to extinguish him

And here I am, writing poetry about how much better I am.