He was my first boyfriend. Everything started out great, but then slowly, the guilt-tripping started…I still haven’t gotten justice.

How many words or small sentences can you lose from yourself to be deeply damaged? One, one thousand, one hundred thousand? Are there inconsequential words? I do not have an answer. But the loss of my words is changing me.

When I was thirteen, my parents found out I am bisexual. From that moment on, everything changed.

Then one day, it got so much worse.

“You say you love me. 

Yes! You do love me. 

But I have been loved before. 

I have been left before.”

“At first, I thought he was perfect. It felt like a movie: I was the quiet, unnoticed girl, and he was the popular football player, strong enough to lift me effortlessly. To my fifteen-year-old self, he seemed like a Disney prince amidst the typical high school crowd…He even proposed using a ring my mother bought; overwhelmed, I responded vaguely, "Maybe."’

“Fleeing physical and emotional abuse, at sixteen I left, choosing the risk of living on the streets instead…The following young adult years found me working my way across the country and internationally, in a series of adventures and calamities that helped me begin to heal and find myself. ”

“I am a survivor of sexual assault and a suicide attempt. I am a survivor who has walked through the revolving doors of love that hurts—enduring two abusive relationships. 

I am a survivor of everything the world has decided to put me through. These experiences are part of my diary—and I have chosen not to tear the pages out. 

This is why.”