Never Enough

Dear Lust,

I've been chasing you for years -you've been my goal, my focus.  I set my sights and ran, determined to compete with you and come out on top.  But once unleashed, you only fed and grew.

You were ever present, yet elusive.  An air of mystery floated around you.  You surrounded my home, my mind, my soul... so thick it was almost tangible.  Almost.  almost.
When it comes to touch, though, to actually FEELING you -there's no such thing.

You don't feel anything.

You don't allow feeling things to touch you.

I know that now.  I didn't before.  I only spent hours trying to hold you hostage, pick your brain and have power over you -enough to control you, reign you in and manipulate you to what I would have you be.

I just needed more make up, thinner legs, bigger boobs, better style, longer eyelashes, more shapely hips, a bubble butt, bigger lips...
I needed sexier lingerie, smoother legs, longer hair.
Curlier hair!
Straighter hair!

To chase you, I needed to have an unreachable ideal of perfection and mystery all wrapped up into a beaten body.
Your pull was alluring -shimmering pink, soft glow, luscious perfume, music I couldn't get enough of. 
I chased, I chased, I chased... determined to match up, determined to channel Paris Hilton, Kim Kardashian, and Marilyn Monroe.
Never enough.
Never enough.

Only when I quit chasing you did I have time to really study.  I read, I watched.  I prayed.  I wrote.  I observed.  And though your hollow glow hung heavy around me at all times, I began to see through it.

Beyond the shimmer and the scent was something black.  The shimmer was a tantalizing mask -only a mask. I had been chasing a mask.

The reality of it hit me hard.  I felt angry with you for not being honest with me.  I felt angry with myself for allowing myself to be duped.  I felt frustration.  I felt lost.  I had spent myself on you -I was mostly gone!  Only a shred was left of the girl in me who had dreams beyond you.

Oh, how I nursed that shred.

You stayed -despite having been found out.  For although I had seen through you, I had not yet peeled your mask off.  Your pink aura had shifted to black, but the power and control in you remained strong still.  And that was enough for you... sucking choices, sucking joy, sucking life... sucking the life blood from the veins of a young family.

My shred grew slowly, surely, resolutely. 

I took her to the mirror and put her up so she could see.  Your blackness overcame my body, telling it how awful it looked, criticizing it's every natural curve and crease.
The voices in my head grew and grew, forcing themselves into my soul through any possible opening -each breath I took was filled with black filth: breathing in black, taking it into my vital organs.  Breathing out the woman I'd been nursing...
I tried putting her back in, tried breathing her back into her place, tried to find my footing.

You're never enough
You'll never be enough

Finally, I SPEAK UP.  Throwing everything I know about looking into a mirror in the garbage, I look directly at my body and speak up:

I love you.

I appreciate what you've done.

I love you.

I love you.

You scattered that day.  That is the day I ripped your mask off and found what really lied beneath your mask.  There was no beauty, nothing to be desired... you are an appetite with no fill line, no bottom, no boundaries.

You feast on life and spit back death.
Your grip is fast, firm, and full of lies.

You are gluttony personified, monster-ified.
And I am horrified.

Today I asked my husband a question I "shouldn't" have.  But my therapist told me not to should on myself, so I asked.  I wanted honesty and answers, even if it meant hurting... and in his answer, my husband told me about you.
"Even if you had more ______________, it wouldn't have been enough.  It would never be enough.  Nothing is ever enough for lust."

And that's when it hit me:  For 9 years, I've never been enough.  I've spent 3 years relearning that I AM ENOUGH, but the truth of it is I never will be enough for you. 

I want to feel sad.  I want to feel a pull to BE MORE and BE ENOUGH, but it turns out that for the first time since ripping your mask off, I truly am ready to let go of the chase -to FULLY let go and dispel The Awful Black Cloud from my space and soul.

Lust, I will never be enough for you, and I'm Dear Johning you.
It's not me, it's you.

We are never, ever, ever getting back together.


Like ever.

~Alicia