when i met him, i was oddly attracted to him. his round face, green eyes, wide smile. it's not as if i had a 'type' of man i dated.. so i let him get to know me and i let him inside my little space of comfort. he wanted in my pants and well.. i cared about him so i let him in there too.

then he turned everything around. i had told him everthing that was me and eventually he found a way to turn it all into a war against my self-esteem.

he took the amount of sexual partners i had been with and created me into a whore. to his friends i was some kinky sex whore and he loved making himself sound like the sexual god of the century. i had been with much better then him. men who actually cared about parts of my body. men who touched me so gently and so sweetly. men who kissed me like it was our last kiss. men who cared.

but he hardly did any of the the things i wanted him to .. but i was still with him. why? because i thought he could change. i thought he was just jealous, insecure, scared so i tried harder. but then it got worse with comments about how large my ass was getting; how i needed to work out more; how i needed to starve myself.

i'd done that all before. i was and still am a person getting over an eating disorder and he only made it worse. every day i would stare in the mirror, pinch at my skin, grimace at my reflection and some days i would starve myself.

i guess having more partners then your current partner makes you a whore. maybe some woman had done him wrong and he wanted to take it all out on me. but the day he insulted my relationship with sam, my best friend, it was over. we ended it.

but he took my heart with him. it was already broken into tiny shards and he handed it back to me in a box filled with mementos of our relationship.

"burn them, sell them, save them. i could care less," he growled.

i kept them. i kept them until my heart, battered and limp made it's way from under the stuffed animals and pictures. i held it close to me, crying.. mad at myself for wasting all my heart on someone who didn't care enough about me to love me the way i loved him.

there are days when i wake up and think my heart is beating the same, thinking the same..feeling the same. but then i see his face. i hear his voice.. i hear him laugh about me with his best friend..

that's when it all goes back to the way it was and my heart keeps building up the walls around it. it feels as if every day they get higher.. and stronger.

i'm just trying to keep it safe.. safe until i know i can give it away to someone again. which as of late..

...will probably be never again..

i smile a lot lately. i smile wide, happy, wishful smiles; shy, quiet, tired smiles; wishful, dreaming, wispy smiles; behind the computer screen, blushing, embarrassed smiles. i don't know why.. but i do.

i wake up and i dance in the kitchen making coffee. i read the paper, but the news doesn't hit me that much anymore. i read the same books lately over and over.. and over. all the words in them seem lighter and happier. i smell my skin and i laugh. it all feels so fresh.

it feels more real now.

which was the main purpose of me leaving here.. so that when i came back it felt real again. it does you know.. it feels real..it feels so real that i can't even sit in front of my computer for more than an hour before i feel the urge to run outside and play in the park or walk along third street and watch the Mr. Jackson guy sing his Michael Jackson songs.

i feel alive again and i'm enjoying it.. more than i ever enjoyed it before.

thank you bed.. thank you flowers.. thank you everything.. yes. thank you..for bringing me back to life.