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Alana Cartwright Jan 2018
I remember you as a dark figure, looming over me.
My repetition of "no" and "stop" was eventually absorbed into the background noise, ignored- As if I was not present to you, only my body.
Something about the way you overpowered me, until I had nothing left,
You stripped away every remnant of my worth.

Lifeless, with a broken heart, was how you left me.
You touched down in the banks of my hollowed soul,
Like an earthquake, shattered me down to my core.
Everything I built myself upon crumbled, and I was 6 feet underneath the rubble.
That was the last of me, the beginning of my end.

I lacked strength to face this reality, hiding from it instead.
Consumed by destructive habits to fill an ever-growing hole in my heart, I lost myself in a spiraling dark hole.

At the bottom of that hole, I with nothing left, surrendered myself to the One capable of healing.
After a long road of war waged on my soul, peace replaced my hopelessness.
The reality I hid from by using destructive habits to fill an ever growing void, I now face with a full heart, lifted on wings of praise by the Lord's grace.
My loss of self value was redeemed by faith. The scars on my heart, now bandaged, serve as a testimony to the power of God's healing.

Where I was once a slave to my grief, I have been liberated. Where my soul was once lost, has been found.
Written in response to a recent trigger of suppressed memories. Before publishing, I revisited this piece several times contemplating why I was writing it. Two years ago I was introduced to *** by ****, and it stripped me of everything. I've learned, sometimes some weeds have deeper roots than you expect, and occasionally they will sprout up in times you least expect. By the grace of God I have grown to be stronger because of it, but only because I rely on His strength above my own.
Alana Cartwright Jan 2018
I saw the art of your being, the beauty in your soul, and the exquisite nature of your mind. I saw the depth of you and wanted to plunge into the deepest corridors of your crooked and tattered heart -- a heart that longed for love, but would never reciprocate.

For many many months I dove down, desperately trying to seize a part of you that would hold onto me too, any fragment of emotion you held, or rather withheld from me. However, the deeper I tried to delve into that cold and dark heart, the farther away I had become from who I was. In that abyss I found pain and anguish, the atmosphere was toxic and the brokenness of your past swallowed me whole. It continued churning, but with me in it.

Your heart was scarred and beaten ****** by the elements of the world around you, but what you failed to realize, was what you contributed to that world as well. To my world, which now revolved around you. The toxicity of your unhealed pain hardened your heart, enclosing me in, and infecting my own heart with it.

I was, and still am, plagued with the longing to root myself under all the hurt and despair you feel and plant hope. Plant hope among the chaos, water the seeds of love, and purify us both. I long for a garden to sprout among the weeds that have strangled us, and produce flowers of the sweetest scent and berries of the sweetest juice.

But in the flaw of my design, and the toxicity that has ruled my heart, there is error in my beliefs. As much as I attempt to wrap you up in the warmth of my love, that will not fix you. I cannot fix you. Now I drift in the tides of anger, sadness, and nostalgia, trying to give my soul rest and balance on the foundation of truth and faith.
June 30, 2017.

An old piece written during a time of great anxiety and sadness. Thankfully, I have since parted with the subject of this poem and have been relieved of the aforementioned "plague."
Alana Cartwright Jan 2018
What do you feel when you touch her?

You should feel the softness of her skin, mixed with the prickles of her newly growing hair. You should feel her eyelashes and locks of hair graze your cheeks as her soft lips meet yours. You should feel the curvature of her spine and the arch of her back as her chest rises and falls with each breath.

If you can feel her physical body with the touch of your hand, what more can you feel in your heart from the very essence of her soul?

Adhere to this, my dear boy, for you need understand a woman's body is sacred. Feel in your fingertips her skin, but feel in your heart the warmth of her soul and her beating heart that aches for you. Touch her with delicacy and care, for she is a flower, still in bloom. Her body is her temple, her fortress, and by entering, you receive a piece of her heart that is a foundation upon which that temple is built. Reciprocate this, and open your heart to her just as well, as your bodies collide and souls intertwine. The passion between two lovers will surely then create harmony within both of you alike.
written in early 2017, during my healing process in response to being sexually assaulted-- with the intention of addressing the sacredness of intimacy, and what it is meant to be, rather than how people may corrupt it by using it to inflict pain.

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