You don’t realize how much of yourself

is lost

until you start picking up the pieces again. One by one,

meandering in darkness,

squinting to make out what

it is you’re collecting,

what

it is you’re building back up.

Hansel and Gretel at least

planned ahead before being captured and eaten,

leaving themselves a convenient trail back home.

But you don’t plan for an abusive relationship,

no one can.

In any relationship,

there is no expectation

you will deviate from yourself so drastically

as to one day need to find yourself again.

Thoughts and opinions,

style choices and clothing preferences, ideals and standards,

your favorite ways to celebrate or unwind,

all these things you thought

were so integral to your being:

gone.

Reshaped by an experience you never thought you would have.

Time

time

glorious

finite

ticking

time.

That’s what it takes to reassemble what you now will be.

You were never going to look the same

after this

you never had a chance.

Had it gone differently,

you still wouldn’t have had the chance, because

if it wasn’t divorce,

it would have been something else that changed you.

Life continues,

rolling forward,

a never ceasing movement of time.

You will, in fact

Find yourself

Again.

you won’t look the same

you won’t feel the same

you won’t know the same

you won’t hear the same

you won’t

BE

the

same.

You will be so much more.