It’s not over for you yet, and that’s ok. There’s no need to struggle and resist how you feel as though that will make a difference. It will just make you tired, because you won’t reason away your emotions. You could if you wanted to, maybe, but you know you don’t want to right now.

He hurts you and you hate that. You should hate that. You deserve better than what he gives you, and it’s understandable to be angry and disappointed with him. It’s understandable to comfort yourself with thoughts of ending it all, so he can never disappoint you again.

But you understand it now, why your mom let your dad hurt her for so long and why she couldn’t say no to him whenever he came around (at least, not for long). It was unfathomable for years: how could someone be so foolish; why wouldn’t she cut him off to protect herself? You feel this way, and you remember her example, but despite all that, in your own foolishness you wouldn’t say no either.

I was born from this kind of love; these are the fires that forged me. I grew up in their ashes. And the pain I feel now, the hunger and longing, the misery and the stupid silly hope, are all the only home that’s always been mine to claim. Denying that, shutting my eyes to the reality, won’t help. This, is what is.

Two years ago today, my mother died. I’d always hoped she would call one day and apologize for the pain that she caused, and for the choices she made that hurt me so deeply. She never did try to make amends, though (or even acknowledge that they were owed), and in death, she never will.

More recently, I lost my first love. The situation is not quite the same. A body resembling his is still animate, walking around impersonating the one who meant so much to me, and others fail to detect a difference. But unlike those people, I see the truth under that visage.

While I’m able to understand the disease that affected my mother’s mind and body, I can only guess at what happened to him. Maybe a sickness ate away at his heart (so full, once) and left behind vessels capable of continuing blood flow, but not love. Maybe the sheer force of my will was able to spark the flame of life in him, but only for a little while, and those embers glowed and faded without truly catching. Or maybe a monstrous demon possesses him now, so gleeful to wound me, and a prisoner in his own body, he calls out to me still, but in a way I can no longer hear.

Neither of them are mine to save, and once again, the world is mine to face alone. I will not have another mother, but I can create a second love. They have died, outside me and within, but I do not have to die with them.