I'm different
I've changed.

I'm not the girl you used to know
That emotional and weak person
You stomped on.
I'm a different individual entirely

a different atom from the element I once belonged
a different element from the compound I once adore

I'm no longer that pathetic girl
that cried each night your words stabbed like dagger
now you opinions have to matter
before it even gets a starter

I'm not that lonely girl you used to know
the one that depression seemed to like a lot.
Now I find myself laughing
At life's silly jokes

I collapsed like a skyscraper
And built myself
With my own wreckage

Every blow you threw
Every wound you inflicted
Every time failure embraced me
Every time the world frowned on me
Every time fate disowned me

I got back up
stronger and tougher
My wounds didn't heal
my scars aren't gone
the memories aren't erased
but the person I was

That pathetic weak emotional little girl.
She died in the midst of all the pain
and I was born

I'm not a better version
I'm not a fixed up version

I'm a new one, a brand new.

I am nothing I used to be

I am me
I am free

I no longer have to please worthless people
I no longer have to resent fake people
I no longer have to hang on to painful memoir.

if you meet me now, you aren't meeting a happy,
perfect person,
you aren't meeting a sad, depressed suicidal person
you are meeting a fighter
you fought life's battles
and won.

Because I am everything and anything but who I was.
© oyindasola