I thought you were supposed to love me. I thought you were supposed to make me better and stronger than I already am. I thought you were my forever person. I didn’t know that love could harm you. I refused to believe there was another side to love—cruel and painful or maybe just completely wrong.

You know, my whole life I’ve been afraid something similar would happen to me and I was right. I was always hearing stories of abusive men and their wives who didn’t have the guts to walk away. I always wondered how they could be so stupid. Why wouldn’t they just leave?

And years after, I got myself into the same mess. And I couldn’t leave. I was that woman who didn’t have the courage to fight for her life. I was that woman who kept receiving one blow after another and I still stuck around.

Dear God, how did I get here?

What wrong moves have I made along my path? Why didn’t I get some kind of a warning when I met you? How could I have let myself take that unknown leap into the aching future with you?

I know I made so many mistakes. We all did, but now I wonder: “Is there some kind of an alarm that goes off every time you are about to make the biggest mistake of your life?” There’s got to be! Some inner warning that keeps us safe. If there is, I think mine got broken.

And even if it was there, I ignored it completely. I was probably so smitten that I didn’t hear the screams from the inside: “Get the fuck out!!” I ignored that piercing sound of a warning and I made the biggest mistake of my life—I fell in love with YOU.

From that moment on, everything was up to me. Every decision of mine led me to the moment I’m living in now.

The time we spent together formed itself into a separate world – an isolated place only the two of us had the access to. You held the key to every door and I was just a mere peasant. Unable to explore the world. Unable to conquer it. I was living in a place I couldn’t understand. I’ve forgotten who I am.

Every time I glanced at the mirror, I saw the reflection of you. With every following day and with every following glance, I was fading out and you were appearing. You slowly consumed me and turned me into something that I’m not, something that I was never supposed to be.

You’ve sucked the life out of me and left just a pale outline of what used to be me.

I don’t know how long this life battle is going to last. I don’t understand why I haven’t yet vanished into beautiful, silver dust, why I still haven’t got rid of all the pain? That’s how I imagine myself when I finally break free from the indestructible chains that are suffocating me—a beautiful, silver dust, free to go anywhere I imagine.

I don’t know if I’m bulletproof. Am I going to suffer my whole life just because I can—just because I’m not broken yet?

Maybe I have to hit rock bottom. Maybe that fall will break me into those million little, sharp pieces. But I’m afraid. I’m afraid if this place where I am now is not the lowest of the low, what is?

Will I be able to survive it? Who will pick up the shattered pieces?

I know that I need to keep trying and fighting this life because I chose it myself. No one forced me into it, but someone is forcing me to stay—someone is not letting me go. Although that someone—you—sees all the crippling pain that is eating me alive, you won’t let me go.

You just keep pushing until you destroy me completely—until I become beyond repair—until no one else can EVER love me—until I’m finally ruined for good.