May

My dearest May, you've come yet again.

You always come with the sound of rain on the roof and the sweet smell of flowers blooming, reminding me that summer is near.

School has ended and so has my love for you. No, not my love for May.

May, my love for you will never die. It is as everlasting as an evergreen forest.

My love for the man that I slept next to ended. 

It didn't end in May, though. 

It ended long before the thought of May. It ended long before the clock struck 12:00 on January 1st. It even ended before "Jingle Bells" started playing on the radio.

To be brutally honest, I couldn't tell you the exact moment I stopped loving you even if I tried. I can't tell you why I stopped loving you. I can tell you a story though.

I once loved a man so much that I gave him all of me. I let him touch me in places I had never let another man touch me before. I let him take my innocence.

People have asked me, "What's the big deal about that? That's what you do when you love someone."

What they don't know is that he didn't deserve my love.

I wanted this man to be my first and only love.

The "big deal" about it was that he cheated, he lied, and he was deceiving. To say the least.

I blossomed in his presence because I had faith that he would nurture me, like a gardener would a young flower.

I told him about how my father loves marijuana more than he loves my mother and I.

I told him about how when my mom was young a man that she should've never crossed paths with snatched her and raped her. He never even went to trial for it.

I told him about how when my anxiety and depression creep into my room every night I crawl into their cold arms and find my hands at my head then wake to clumps of hair on my carpet when I wake with swollen eyes.

I gave him all of me and all of my trust. He took it and shit on it every damn time.

But May, my friend, you gave me strength. You gave me the courage to finally break it off with the stranger who I'd been saying "I love you." to out of habit.

May, you brought me hope and you brought me hardships.

You brought me happiness and you brought me new friends.

You made me closer than ever with my lovely friends that were there with me through that terrible man.

You introduced me to other terrible men but while doing all of this you introduced me to my new self.

A lighter more motivated me.

My name no longer feels heavy coming out of my mouth and I don't find my hands at my head so often.

I don't cry myself to sleep and I don't question my worth.

I am free.

Thank you, May.