When The Person Who Hurt You The Most Calls Again

When the person who caused you the worst sort of harm gets back in touch with you and says how happy they are to see what a success you have made of yourself, resist the urge to bite or lash out. Resist the urge to tell them about the ashes they left you in and how dare they message you right now as though you are on talking terms.

Instead, smile.

Smile knowing inside yourself that that smile is the smile of triumph, of victory, of the kind of glory that comes from finally healing despite all the pain someone else caused you. Smile knowing that you are so phenomenal as a person that even when someone else left you and your emotions for dead, you came back, fighting and clawing and scratching your way through everything. You came back like the warrior you are. They underestimated how tough you are, and look, here they are, back again to say how proud they are of your strength.

Betrayal sometimes wears the mask of a best friend or a lover that was supposed to be a great love. And it always takes us by surprise because if we expected it, we would in no way be betrayed. And there are those that are never whole again without it. You however, are not one of those people. Because look at how far you have come, look at how successful you are. So successful that people who had treated you like something forgettable still remember you and are still contacting you years after.

In response, you smile. In response, you say, “Thank you. I’m prouder of myself than you know. Because I took the thing that was supposed to destroy me and turned it into the very soil that will help me grow.”

Nikita Gill is a poet and the author of the book
Your Soul Is A River.

Your Soul Is A River is available as a physical and electronic book. You can buy it here.