Journal entry April 20, 2016

What do you do when you’ve spent your life,
trying to be everything she wasn’t?
What do you do when all you hear growing up,
is how bad she is?
What do you do when all you see,
is her bad decisions?
What do you do when she wouldn’t,
protect you?
What do you do when all you hear,
is that she was wrong?
What do you do when you know,
she hurt you?

What do you do when they tell you,
“You’re just like her”?
What do you do when they say,
“You pick all the losers, just like her”?
What do you do when they tell you,
“You think you can get whatever you want with your looks”?
What do you do when you’re told,
“You play the martyr”?

What do you do,
when the person you are supposed to identify with,
that’s supposed to be your biggest influence,
is bad,
wrong,
of no value?

When you look in the mirror,
what do you see?
When you look in the mirror,
what do you want to see?
Everything that isn’t her.
You want to be loyal.
You want to hide your beauty.
You want to prove you can do what she didn’t.
You want to show the world you are nothing like her.
Anything that makes you think of her makes you sick.
The thought of seeing anything of her within you makes you want to vomit.
You want to hide who you are.
You want to pretend you are better than her.
You want to prove that she had no influence on you.

When she talks about the girl fun,
doing your nails together,
how fun it was,
you want to puke.
You want to laugh.
You want to say you don’t remember any of that.
All you remember is the hurt.

All you want to be is everything she isn’t.
You don’t want to be her.
You don’t want a trace of her within you.
You will do anything to squash it,
not let it show.
You will prove you are better than her.
You will stay.
You will protect.
You will give.
You will not think of yourself.
You will sacrifice everything you can to not be her.

And you will slowly die.
Everything in you,
that is her,
will die.
Suffocate.
It will still be there,
inside you
like an illness that you will never let show.
You will pretend it’s not there.
You will ignore it.
When it tries to peek out,
you will smack it back down,
tell it to stay where it is.
You will silence it.
You will squeeze the breath out  of it,
will it to die.
You won’t show it.
No one is allowed to see it.

What if they see her in you?
You will be bad.
You are bad.
She is in you,
but they don’t have to know.
You can hide it.
You can keep it inside.
You can adapt.
You can be,
whatever the people around you,
need you to be.
You just keep being.
You can do it.
Keep hiding.
Keep pretending.
Don’t let them see.

Now she is gone.
There’s nothing here.
She left nothing.
There is no trace.
She is no longer walking,
hurting,
destroying,
draining.
She is gone.
She left nothing behind.