I used to picture us sitting at the top of that mountain, the clear night looking over at the city, having one last conversation. You ask me if we made it. We couldn’t hear the life from the lights. They were as far away as the stars above us, reminding us there was existence. We were the only ones that mattered.

I began to picture the day that haunted me for way too long, the day that paused time. I see it all; the absence of your emotion, myself standing before you, begging you to do the right thing, to be the person you believed you were. I see myself pleading with the universe hoping that my nightmare wasn’t true; There wasn’t someone else, there couldn’t be someone else.

I see that day clearly. I was blamed for leaving, it was made to seem like my fault and it began to feel like it. Exiled by our friends, suffocated by guilt that wasn’t mine, his unfaithfulness was deemed as a reflection of me. If I didn’t leave he wouldn’t have went into her arms. If I would have been better, he wouldn’t have strayed. If I would have been everything he wanted, I would have been capable of his love, and not his deceit.

I see that when I took you back the first time, I condemned myself to rethink my own depths of love; infidelity with a reason is acceptable. It’s a day fragmented in time, changing the trajectory of both of our lives.

When I decided to write Chapter One I struggled. The words didn’t flow, the the wheels wouldn’t turn and I couldn’t think of where to begin, except, for where it ended. I would rather write of other things; moments I never thought would exist again, poems encapsulating languages I had never spoken, and things I am now proud of. Those things are foreign to me, I have written about my pain for so long, it’s all I had known.

Reflections lay the bricks for ones integrity and guide us to create the foundations to who we are, and I don’t want to shy away from that. Two years ago changed my life. Actions are etched in time and cruelties will never be minimized, never fade, never diminish. Karma is an indestructible line that cannot be justified, sweet talked or evaded. It will always exist, firm, on its own. I have gratitude, something I never thought I would say, for all that happened, it has changed my inner workings for the better.

Life is finally silent. We drop our weapons.

I don’t want to only write about why I became cursed. I want to write about the journey. The poisons and potions I drank to try to break it, the places I went to to escape, who I’ve met and what I had to discover to be free.

I want to write about what solitude looks like.

I no longer see us sitting on top of that mountain. I no longer see us having that final conversation. Rather, I see you with someone, happy. Going on drives and getting coffee. Rediscovering the feeling of warmth, and that gives me warmth.

I see myself on the day that changed me for so long. I see myself grabbing my things but I don’t see myself crying, or begging. The world no longer stops. My heart is no longer blurry or chaotic, and my foundation doesn’t seem unsteady and I don’t feel the tear soaked stains embroidered on my cheeks.

I see myself walking out. There isn’t yelling and there isn’t screaming. There isn’t that pit in my stomach that lingered for months. I see myself looking up to the sky. Looking at the purple and the pinks. Knowing the stars are coming out soon.

There are reminders that there is more to the story, there is existence beyond. I see myself outside that apartment and I’m not upset about a boy, I’m not distraught about a girl, I am content. I match the glimmers above. It is warm and it is vast, and I think am not from here. I am one who to travels alongside meteors, farther than brightest realms, passed the moon, amongst the stars.

And with a huge smile, looking up to the sky I know every great story begins where it ends.