Everything and Nothing

He only kissed me because she dared him to. He only kissed me again because he thought he might get lucky. Then again I have no room to judge. I thought it might too. And maybe, if I did that, I might feel something again. But I chickened out and only kissed him goodnight, watching him walk out into the rain not long after with another blonde slut. No she-shaming though, I used to be that blonde slut. 

But now I am just a girl who put everything on hold because one guy hurt her. A girl who went from feeling so much all at once to feeling absolutely nothing at all. Nothingness for years... I thought I'd get over him, over the pain and the trust issues. Like I did before. It took me less than a year to recover from losing my virginity in a very regrettable fashion... about 6 months or so to recover (mostly) from being assaulted by two men that I had considered my friends... only a few weeks to recover from the trauma of totaling my car from a stupid teenage mistake... and about a day to get over the fact that most people only saw me as an object not a person. I used these things to my "advantage" to "feel alive" with sex, drugs and alcohol. But I think all that started the chain of emptiness and all that healing was just a lie. I thought I was getting stronger when really I just accepted the lies that those who hurt me used to justify their actions. I accepted that I was easy, and dirty. I accepted that I wanted that to happen because I didn't fight back. I accepted that I was a selfish bitch that never thought about other people. I accepted that I was an object to be used and tossed out. I accepted these lies rather than deal with the pain. I chose to do and feel nothing.

Enter him. The one that got away. Cliche. I know. I know I said I only felt nothingness after he left but the truth is I never really felt anything of consequence until I was with him. He made me come alive in ways I never imagined. My confidence was through the roof when I was around him. I was the most beautiful woman In the world because he said so. I could be honest with him. Nothing I said could scare him off or make him think less of me. I could learn from him, and he made me stronger. But then he was too broken to be with this new and stronger woman he made me to be. Or so that's what he said. I think he was just weak. Either way, after years of growing into someone new I didn't know what to do with someone who didn't need me anymore.. someone who didn't want me anymore. So I let him keep that girl he built me to be, only in his memories. I walked away, going back to my nothing. 

That girl wasn't really me, just what he wanted me to be. Without him I couldn't be her. It felt like tearing a thousand thorns from my skin after leaving her behind. It felt raw for so long afterwards. I felt so much for so long that I had to remember how to hide it all and be nothing again. The wound was raw, open, vulnerable, and exposed. And like wounds naturally do it started to heal with time. Slowly clotting off the blood flow. Forming flexible defenses from outsiders. Building up thick scabs to harden the outside and protect the new tissue underneath. Now that is just a scar; a huge one, but even that is beginning to fade, and eventually it will disappear. Maybe then I will forget the pain and only remember how I let someone break through my nothing. One day I'll be brave on my own. Maybe I'll finally be everything I need. But hopefully I'll find my everything without relying on someone else to take away my nothing.