How I hate disappointing you.
The silence that follows.
It screams, “you failed,”
and that primeval hammer
in my nervous system
sounds the alarm.
My younger self, her face
red and burning,
insides churning;
her hands balled up
in tight little fists.
She silently rages
and turns her pain inward.
I am not fooled by
your sugar-coated words,
your pious efforts that appear
like some kind of holiness;
they just as quickly
become poisonous quills.
I am letting go,
for in letting go I am free –
Oh that my freedom
had not come at
such a high cost!
It is a double-edged sword,
a fine balance
between power and sacrifice,
relief and sorrow,
feeling everything
and nothing at all,
often at the same time.
I weep for all the things lost,
yet all the things gained.
My heart is lop-sided.
And lop-sided shall it be
till better days arrive.
I will survive.
For a lop-sided heart
is better than an
imprisoned one.
Let me rejoice in
having a heart at all.
Photo by Felix Rottmann on Unsplash
