bloodteethandflame

Even if these are someone else’s words, I need them.

Sometimes, I need words so desperately, and often it takes someone else to write them, or say them before I can rest, before my busy, angsty meat-brain will be quiet.

~~~~

An open love letter to your inner child.

To the child who couldn’t understand

why nobody could understand.

To the one whose hand was never taken,

whose eyes were never gazed into by

an adult who said,

“I love you.

You are a miracle.

You are holy,

right now and

forever.”

To the one who grew up in the realm of “can’t.”

To you who lived “never enough.”

To the one who came home to no one there, and

there but not home.

To the one who could never understand why

she was being hit

by hands, words, ignorance.

To the one whose innocence was unceremoniously stolen.

To the one who fought back.

To the one who shattered.

To the never not broken one.

To the child who survived.

To the one who was told she was

sinful, bad, ugly.

To the one who didn’t fit.

To she who bucked authority

and challenged the status quo.

To the one who called out

the big people for

lying, hiding and cruelty.

To the one who never stopped loving anyway.

To the child that was forbidden to need.

To the ones whose dreams were crushed

by adults whose dreams were crushed.

To the one whose only friend

was the bursting, budding forest.

To the ones who prayed to the moon,

who sang to the stars

in the secrecy of the night

to keep the darkness at bay.

To the child who saw God

in the bursting sunshine of

dandelion heads

and the whispering

clover leaf.

To the child of light who cannot die,

even when she’s choking

in seven seas of darkness.

To the one love

I am and you are.

You are holy.

I love you.

You are a miracle.

Your life,

your feelings,

your hopes and dreams–

they matter.

Somebody failed you but you will not fail.

Somebody looked in your eyes and saw the sun — blazing — and got scared.

Somebody broke your heart but your love remains perfect.

Somebody lost their dreams and thought you should too,

but you mustn’t.

Somebody told you

that you weren’t

enough

or too much,

but you are

without question

the most perfect

and holy creation of 

God’s

own

hands.

    — by Alison Nappi, as seen on the Rebelle Society here

~~~~

Yesterday was that sort of day.

It was all on me, and no one could do a thing.

(It was the sort of day that I tend to wonder if I really should make t-shirts advertising Mr. L’s masonry business*, as it is very much still in business and obviously thriving, and that is likely due to me and my stubborn avoidance maneuvers.)

It’s my own damned fault – well, most of it — and a lot of that hit me when my therapist derailed my carefully constructed fortress of ‘everything’s fine! look at me, I’m meeting expectations’ when she said:

“Here’s a thought: Could it be that (your carefully constructed fortress of ‘everything’s fine! look at you, you’re avoiding again’) is just another reason that you could be — I dunno — hiding behind to keep yourself from having to make a decision?”

And I won’t lie.

I burst into tears.

She told me that it was OK, that it’s quite possible that I’ve never made a decision in my life without such an agonizing mental struggle, and that that is what we were here to be working on, and…

Then, she excused herself, and left in the room suddenly.

And I composed myself to the slow steady tick of the clock.

I am not OK.

It is not OK for me to hide behind this or that ‘reason’ — it’s just another form of lying….to myself.

It is not OK for me to avoid — that’s just another dodge of the inevitable

I should just shut my excuse-hole, and practice saying the truth, which is:

“I have not made a decision.”

And when I am asked why, I should say:

“I haven’t any excuse for my behavior.”

~~~~

*sneaky tons of bricks everywhere