Toxic Poem by Tessa Eichhorst

For years you became my therapy, my release, my scapegoat. I became another person, most of the time a person I didn't like to become.

I always knew I had the power to take you in small doses, but taking you in multiple ones made life more fun, more tolerable; at least that's what I would quietly tell myself.

Instead of expressing my feelings on paper with my pen, you became my expression, my excuse to be a different person and 'let loose'.

Forgetting the person I've always been, I made you the reason to change who I've always been. You made life a blur and mornings dreadful, all it took was one night to bring it into perspective.

No longer do you have a hold on my life. I've stepped back from the person you made me, and found who I was without you once more. No more can you tell me how to feel and take control of me.

I've remembered how beautiful life can be without you holding me down and suffocating me.