To You, Who Met Me After

There is a version of me you’ve never met. The girl who bleeds herself dry. The one being carried to the hospital in the middle of the night. The girl who feels too deeply. The girl who has nothing left to give but keeps giving anyway. The girl who wishes for death but death declines her every time. She wanted to fly but her wings were denied. The girl whose arms tell a million stories of pain and love. The razor was her pen. The skin was the paper. She swallowed pills like they were candies. The girl who drowns in her own head, barely surviving.

The person you are seeing now is wiser, healed and contained. You’ve never met that past version of me and I’m glad you didn’t because you wouldn’t have been able to handle her.

You didn’t meet her but I survived her.