Death you are a b*tch.

You leave your sting wherever you go.

You are mindless and hurtful and we are never ready for your arrival no matter how long we have expected you to show up.

You work your magic when we least expect it. And we are silenced by the grip you hold on us.

You have left a trail of broken hearts in your wake…I should’ve known you would have the same effect on me.

You are foreign and yet familiar….and THAT I hate.

You changed my story and for that I will never let you live it down.

There are a long list of October 22nd’s in my life…..

Jan 26th….Nov 2….March 28th….Feb 21st…..the list is longer than I care to note.

I hate you.

And yet there have been moments in my history that I have longed for you.

You have taken too many, too soon…it is always too soon.

You taunt and deceive. You have a way of making us feel invincible to your power until the moments where you show up without notice and we are forcefully shaken back to a reality that says the opposite.

But hear this-

I am no longer making room for you to taint my day to day. You no longer get to cast the shadow from my past on the moments of my presence.

Dark days are now being brought to light.

I will not throw away the memories of those you have taken with the wreck-less abandon in which you choose to operate.

Although I cannot forget, I make a deliberate choice to remember-

…the goodness in which I have been shown, the faithfulness I have clung to,  and the hope that I hold closer than the memories you try and haunt me with.

To death I say:

You and I will meet again. This is a fact that doesn’t stir up fear. But I will not make room for you before it’s time. I will not hold back from loving and giving because I fear forming bonds that you may inevitably break.

Hear this: You will be defeated, well before you defeat me.