March 20th is approaching and it will be two years since the day life paused. I never understood how to the culprits — time didn’t stop. As my naivety subsided and time went on, bringing facts to light, doesn’t equate to retribution, or the justice I was imagining. When it comes to deception in the name of passion— people do not connect to their crimes.

I watched as my love became a joke, canceled out the second there was another involved. I fought that reality for a long time.

Love is a valuable thing. Something so incredibly sacred, it is not manipulated or pawned. It’s one of the rarest treasures. My heart is shared with those who reach uncharted depths, listen to the world around them. I am isolated, protected by the treacherous waves of my misunderstandings.

I had minimized my love to the trauma that will be with me for the rest of my life, and the two people who caused it. March 20th 2022 had redefined my version of love.

I had been in a relationship where I loved so freely, so rawly; destiny existed and we were from a story already written. Or pure chaos, it didn’t matter, in every shape and form, our collisions throughout couldn’t resist to intersect. Trust came naturally. It was a slow build, a steady ebb and flow. I often think I will never love in that way again, and in a lot of ways that is a good thing. But in the healing aspect, it was beautiful to have that etched in time, to leave that version of myself to learn from, to build off of. I loved her, that version of Jessica, she loved fearlessly and fully. She believed whole heartedly in the inherent good— to believe in someone meant they would believe in themselves too.

In the end all I did was I love.

Then I did the impossible— I walked away. I think those things both take an obscene amount of strength.

When love involves betrayal, your understanding and processing can only look one way. Even if you are abundantly wise, intelligent; you are the scorned woman.

Overtime,I would sit in silence, and think of all the things I was robbed of. My individuality was taken; Identity was copied, emulated.

My worst nightmare. How do you come back from that? How do you come back to yourself after being ripped apart and plagiarized? watched as she loved like she held your own depth and lore, spoke like you gave her your secrets and embodied sanctions that resembled your own. The way I loved was echoed and I was replaced.

Two years ago I went through hell. I thought I would never make it out.

I thought I the wounds would never ease, my heart would never heal, and my fire would never return.

With the unshaken ability to speak, my words hold value. The daggers residing in my back aren’t new to the flesh, they hold their place, reminding me the knife twists but does not kill.

I love fully The only way I know how to be. When it comes to the endings, I have only one choice. To do the hard thing. Allow the mysticism of what was to exist in the relics of the foundation of my words, jewels that encapsulate every moment placed in time,

transformation, creation, liberation, making, the horrors of March 20th, into something beyond.