painting over

The sky is a stupidly bright shade of blue and the clouds are scattered about it like someone spilled a bag of cotton balls.

It's my last day here and it suddenly hit me. 

I did it. I went to Ireland.

Two years ago, visiting my father in the hospital, I told him the man I'd admired moved to Ireland and that I wanted to go there, I wanted to visit. 

And in Spain last year, sprawled on a bed in a tiny apartment, I wrote my girlfriend and said I thought we should go to Ireland this year. 

And we did it.

I didn't see the man who moved here and I didn't fuck a stranger but none of that mattered because this journey wasn't about any man. 

I like laying on beds with my feet on the pillows and I like drinking mochas in cafes that are served with tiny teaspoons. 

I like crying when I see fog rolling atop cliffs and I like that my girlfriends know to hug me a little bit longer than they hug anyone else. 

I like my black hair even though he wishes it were red and I like that my new best friend understands my depression more than my old one ever allowed herself to. 

I like that when I make eye contact with street musicians and smile into their eyes they step out of their musical reverie for a moment and smile back. 

I like that I wanted to go somewhere and I went.

And that when I'll want to go somewhere else I'll go.

Because I believe in the things I believe in despite the men who try to destroy me.

And I'll love again.

I always love.

And I'll stop wishing he would call or want me or love me or mean any of the things I'll never believe were real.

And when he calls, because he always calls, it won't stop my heart, in terror or in joy. 

It will be like the man in Ireland.

The man I once so desperately longed to see and quickly dismissed his dismissal of me. 

And he'll be just like the rest. 

The scores and scores of suitors.

You don't have to compare me to him, he'd said angrily. 

Oh, but you are like him. 

You're like all of them.

You're just a man, a selfish, broken addict of a man, and I was the light and love and joy you set aflame.

But your darkness can't consume my light. 

And your hate will not defeat my love. 

I got out, I got out of your hell. 

And travelled thousands of miles to see the bluest ocean and the greenest hills. 

And nothing, not even the demon devouring you can change that. 

Your darkness is no longer part of my painting.

It's only blue. 

And white. 

And full of hope. 

Awe inspiring, consuming hope.