My Truth in Prose...

I once thought betrayal was a failure of mine.

People I let in.

People I trusted.

Was it a wrong turn I never should have taken?

I should have known better.

I should have abandoned my allegiance sooner.

But each time I went full speed ahead

until the ground gave way.

They took what I would have given freely

My loyalty,

my kindness,

my benefit of the doubt,

my willingness to stay longer than was safe.

Their knives found countless ways to cut me.

Yet every blade that struck failed to wound.

Instead, each strike broke another chain that held me,

freeing my eventual forward steps.

Every fractured bind

jutting me toward my future.

Each betrayal stripped illusion from the path,

leaving it narrower,

clearer,

mine.

I see it now.

Nothing was wasted.

Not the rupture.

Not the pain.

Not the silence.

Not the way truth surfaced only after the damage was done.

Somehow they returned what I did not know I had lost.

My discernment.

My purpose.

My surrender to the Master’s plan.

And the truth that

I did not survive them.

I was anointed by them.

So I offer gratitude without reunion,

thanks without reopening the door.

They were never meant to walk with me,

only to turn me toward what was next.

I move forward unburdened,

not lingering to ask why.

The lesson arrived.

The passage opened.

And I am already gone.