On becoming whole:
Identity is not fixed
It is fluid
I never needed to reassemble fractured shards of self
I needed to melt into the scattered drippings of a raging sea I feared would drown anyone around me
The tide recedes to return a tsunami
And all the shame I stitched together and in futility draped overhead
Nothing more than a torn umbrella, useless against the storm that blinded me regardless
A return to self so holy
I can no longer be tempted by any offering short of sacrificial
Plagued by a decades long tug of war with imaginary foes I called “wicked” and “evil” and “my fault”
Renamed on breath that smells of smoke and salt
“Unjust”
“Hurt”
And
“Betrayal”
Where I anticipated “I told you so” in the face of ancient patterns I shouldered as karma
Instead
I flow into a sacred amalgamation
Waiting for so long this moment
Where I finally reject the idea that nothingness in the face of my illumination
Was ever a reflection
But a devouring of particles and waves
He wasn’t a mirror
He was a black hole
The monster I warned him of on the tail of a kiss goodbye
(“She lives somewhere inside me”)
Falls to her knees in the mist bordering waterfalls of my agony
Though I feared she’d mock me as weak
I surrender to her embrace inside of which I feel safe for the first time I can ever remember
This is not the descent into madness
I feared would come
This is crawling out of a schism of self-hatred in which I imprisoned my very soul for far too long
I become acutely aware of the penchant for unimaginable cruelty woven into my very DNA
How else could I have survived hell if not for the demons my mother buried in my bones?
The same ones I silenced by insisting I must be a light in this world
Only now understanding that without my darkness, my light holds no power
Only now understanding the reverence held within the act of alchemizing sinister into survival
Whisperings
“I am not the mistakes I have made.”
“I am not the men who didn’t know how to hold me.”
Even the snake is capable of control
The choice to punish
Instead of maim
Starve
Instead of strike
Neither a moral failing, but an insistence that I am a gift
A marvel of unlikelihoods woven together forming unimaginable depths of love and kindness
Which won’t hesitate to drown any who disrespect what lies beneath the surface
Shedding every skin
I allowed unworthy men to touch
Outgrowing every incarnation
Crafted from desperation to be loved
“If you mishandle my light
with hands only certain of my body
then I will become your lesson.”
Was not a threat
But an oath at the altar where I worship the unbreakable spirit of my emerging wholeness