Respond

I'm responding to you here
because I'm still too scared to respond for real
(and there is not much I'm truly afraid of)
so let me get all of this off my mind.

"The photography business" isn't going, not at all,
because I stopped taking photos long before I stopped talking to you.

I have bigger things to be angry about than just you,
or the fact that you will gladly take credit for an adult child someone else put all the hard work into
while you always rejected the responsibility of me.

After twenty one and a half years, I've started to live.
I have stopped feeling useless,
and every other bad thing you tried to convince me of.

I've finally beaten you (I've finally beaten myself)
and I will not dive straight back into the black hole that took me so incredibly long to climb out of.
I am much, much smarter than that,
and so this is all you will ever get.