I am not broken. I am not damaged.

You did not win, because I never actually needed you.

The power to release myself from dependence has come with loss.
With abandonment, comes my strength to carry onward.

I have been obscene, but I am no longer ashamed.
I carry with myself the days of past belligerence,
and I am not embarrassed because I see myself with resplendence.

I see myself outside of the shadows you have cast me in.
I do not need your sympathy, your validation, or your love.
I carry onward with newfound freedom.

Freedom that has been found in my forlornness,
which was the only thing that drew me to you in the first place.
I have released the need to attach myself to you in an effort to value myself.

And, although I know you are entrapped
in the exact codependency that led you to me,
I will not laugh at you.
I will not feel sorry for you.
I will no longer berate you,
the way you took pride in using your words in an effort to impair me.

I can be at peace with myself at night,
and I do not loathe myself when I wake up.
You have not made me who I am, so I will not thank you.

I can walk alone without you—without anyone.
The molding of my feet in my old leather soles show more color than you ever gave me.
More color than you could ever give me.

I do not hate you.
I know that every marred feeling you choose to deny
has concealed the stains of the pavement in front of you,
and it keeps you from this same attainment.

I was never fettered by your denial.
It does not own me.
It never did.

I will not tell you how better I am now,
because I was never defective, to begin with.

I will impart the liberty I find in my own consciousness.
I can live with my feelings, my history, and myself.
My words are not a nuisance to my very being, as you have once seen them.

Your dismissive behavior is where my humanness lies,
and the reality of my propitious spirit has finally sunk in.

I can no longer be restrained by the need for dependence,
for it’s my sole being that has set me free.

~