I found it.
I found the secret.
The secret that i once held so tightly while running bare foot through the forest.
Along the way i must have stashed it between the trees and bushes while darting towards my made up castle.

It took 20 years to catch my breath.
Slowing coming to a stop, I lifted my head to see where I had ended up.
Only to find a kingdom, but not the one I had made.

No part of my mind could have ever created a beauty such as this.
But this was the secret.
The forgotten, familiar secret that left my hands empty.

Still short of breath, feet still aching, naked among the vines.
Without another thought, here is my entirety.

Clothe me in the leaves and branches that stand so tall above me.
The leaves and branches that fill my lungs with oxygen.
Just as the hair on my arms and the back of my neck stand up with the gifted chill, let the moss sprout from those very pores.
May my crown rise to the galaxies, just as the redwoods relentlessly reach for the clouds.
Pushing cold stones into my own 4th gift, mesmerized by the unknown reality.
My roots digging, growing, stretching, twisting to the bottoms of the soil.
These feet have caved to crave the texture of the deepest grounds.
Standing among the water of the tallest of falls.
Just like coming home.

There was no secret, the secret was home.

The home of a vagabond, once worn like badge of honor.
I want the wanderlust to ends, overwhelmed by the nurture.
The nurture of the forgotten mother.
A forgotten home.
This is home.
This is where it's always been.

Just as the fern never stopped growing beneath my skin, I return the gift with my complete being.

Swiftly married to the endless forest of pines.

I am the floor of the deepest ocean.
I am the cap of the highest mountains.
I am the rain that kisses your face.

I am the grass that grows beneath your bare feet while running through the forest.

I am clothed.
I am grounded.
I am whole.

This is where it has always been.
Stashed between the trees and bushes.

A forgotten home.
A secret kingdom.

This vagabond soul found that home hidden within the frame of my very own twig shaped bones.

Some days suffocating seems easier than breathing.
On those days I can feel the tingle in my toes.
The nots in my stomach.
The ache in my muscles.
The tension in my fist.
I can feel it all.

From the top of my head to the bottom of my feet I ache. Ache for you, for your small whisper. The words that melt me like a candle stick.
Drip by drip I fall.

But just as quickly, my waxy lips learn to breathe again.

What they did not see is that I am only bird bones.
Fragile and lifeless.
Feathers ripped away by the hungry.
Born into survival and not of grace.
Lay still and small. They will pass by.
Let down by their hopes of a put up fight.
Like a wishbone. Snapped with little pressure.
I lay draped in a body bag of mattress sheets. I am swallowed whole by the soil of the silk stitching.
My last articulated thought only being that some how these bones had been exposed by some quick and painless experiment.
Eyes open. Skin rotting. Eaten alive from the inside out.
Bare. Inert. Uninhabited.
This leather skin, stretching so very very thin.
Deepening the hollowed valleys of my depleting coffer.
My only remains are of fragile, lifeless, bird bones.
Ripped away by the hungry.

I can only hold my breathe for so long.

I cant choke on this air for much longer.

What is this emptyness?
What is this hollow shell.

So easily swayed to another's happiness.

When will I be whole.

When will i feel my very own emotions?
When will I finally fall in love with being present in this body so graciously given to me?

But here I stay.
In this room, on a hospital bed, and to think, its my 22nd birthday.

The weight on my back has broken every bone in this body of mine.

When will this end?

When will I be strong enough to crawl out from under this bolder?

Why do I find such comfort in this shattered being?

I don't want it.
Make it end.

I pulled the shirt over your head and helped you put your arms through the sleeves. My very last unstained shirt draped like a dress over your tiny body.
The calm of bottles shattering and bodies slamming into walls never once lifted our heads from the empty dinner table.
It was moments of stillness that made the hair on the back of my neck stand up.
Those moments meant darkness.
Unexpected visitors.
Strangers turning into infatuated demons.
Ripping at the skin of inconsistent consistency that built this toy frame of mine.
Within this secret, I know where to hide. To keep you safe and unseen.
If even for the moment, I can hold your face and cover your ears.
It was only a matter of time.
Only a matter of time before the secrets of these walls made the faces of the residence unrecognizable.
Quickly crawling through the sopping mountains of clothes. Follow me to the tunnels and trenches.
Keeping quiet in every nook and closet.
Like hide and seek, running from monsters.
The adrenaline thrilled you while the reality crippled me.
Keep your eyes closed tight and your ears always covered.
My back pushed hard against your hinged knees. Hiding every piece of you for no monster to see.

its like walking in to a dak woom with no lights room and deperately looking for a light swiththat isn't there.
Like chiking on every word you say, terrifie of the resoce that spills through your ****** cracks=ed lips.
I cant close my eyes.
i see nothng at all.
I feel it all.
Everthing in its place that;s not supposed to be there.
walls necorted wall decortate with fist chaped wholesand shatter glass judt lkr nre carpet.
I close my eye and i see his face.
All of the face.
His long beard cover in whiskey, her thin hair, the way she said, "im going to kiss you  like adults do."
It swollows me whole.
It take my minutes, my hours, my days stripped away from me.
I am nothing to be to be cared for,
I am nothing but dissasociated mindlessness.
You stole it all from me.
Every part of me was ripped away like fragibe bir bines.
Drape me in this body bag of satin sheets.
I'm too sick. Like a flu in my mid.
there is not cure.

I'll create my self in such a way that is beleieveable.
In a way that looks alive.

But honestly I'm far from it.

I'll put make up on this face and clothes on this body.

Trying to convince the world I am at peace.

I am a corpse, if I'm telling the truth.

Touch me and you'll see.
You'll watch this body crumble.

But I'll fool you good.

Some days I wake up brave enough to tell the world every secret hidden in my being.

But other days I wake up to mend myself to the walls and blend in to every corner of the room.

I can't breathe enough to stay alive much less muster up the words to carry a conversation.

I've become the pale shade of gray that meets the wooden floors and white ceilings.

Let me stay here. Hidden among the walls.

I'd hold your hand while you hid behind the couch while fire was spit from every mouth around you.
I'd cover your ears and hold your head.
I grab your arms to keep you from making that time and time again mistake.
"You are everything. You will do everything", Is what I will chant to you every night before you sleep.
I'd tell you just how beautiful you are and that this is not your forever.
These four walls do not define you, but they will make you.
They will make you strong and brave.
These very walls that you hate so much.
This battle will be won, I promise you.
This battle will be won by you and you alone.

Please catch me if you see me falling.

Stop me before I've lost my sanity.

I'm slipping quietly and quickly.

Don't let me go.

Learning to love every broken part of me is the hardest trial I have ever faced.

I've trained myself to only shed light on others when the power had shut off completely inside of my being.

How gracious and patient this love has sufficed.

How slow, long, and drawn out this war has been.

A constant, unnoticed war partaking relentlessly inside of me.  

With my hands to the air, I give up and give in to this unending fight.

This unfamiliar, insane, radical love.

Let the life I live be only guided by the wind and moon light.
Let it be blissful and simple.
Let me be so rich with love that ever encounter is greeted with a kiss.

Who are you to say what I do with my time here on this earth?
I'm here for one thing and one thing only.

I know this not because of any direction given to me or any set of instructions.

I know this because I can feel it.
I feel it deeply etched into my very soul.
I see it in every set if eyes that are met with mine.
I know it with every life that is whispered in my ears.

I was made to love and nothing else.

To love the broken, the fixed, the hurting and the thriving.

I was made to love.

Its been 3 days so far.
3 days of nothing.
I feel nothing.
I feel no sadness, no happiness,
No motivation.
I am nothing.
I feel trapped.
There is a part of me screaming to break free.
Well really I'd just like to think there is.
I'm so numb.
I want to care enough to wake up.
But I don't.
Please wake me up.

How beautiful you sit.
Returning every night to a love that is unending.
The consistency of your visit is the very reason I live.
The light in the blackness.
The guide to my path.
How gracious and patient you sit only to be recognized for just a moment.
You're a gentleman, Mr. Moon.

I'm consumed with exhaustion.

Just to carry on a conversation takes every part of me to form a single word.

How long will it be this time?

I am the thinnest of glass, fragile as hell.
Barely alive but still standing.

The silence embodies my exhausted self.
Let the battle end tonight.
Let me rest, I've resisted long enough.

Your consistency is never ending &
your grace is unfailing.
Your presence is as promising as the morning & your light is like the moon.

I will love you for all of my days just as you have loved me.

How politely you greet me.
Just like a gentleman.
Silently you waited, expecting my arival.
Here I am, eyes dried open.
Hello 2am.
Are you ready for my spiral?

There is no place a can go, no sight I can see, no smell I can recall that doesn't remind me of you

You've ruined me.
You've ruied any sort of childhood I ever had.

You know, my therapist told me that I have so many triggers that my body completely shuts down on a regular bases because it can't handle the memories.
I can't live a normal life because of you.
I can't even sleep because of the the fear you have dyed me with.
I hate you.
I hate you for stealing my life away from me.

Your teeth shatter everytime you speak.
Your arms break everytime you try to hold me.
Your fingers snap everytime they meet mine.
You are cold and dead.
Finding life only in the darkest of pits.
I'll breath every ounce of air I have into those shriveled lungs of yours.
I'd do anything to see those lips move to the shape of the moon.
To watch the color of your pale skin turn blush.
I'd give anything.

I want to know just how you think.
How you function.
What makes your smile so big it's as if it will never fall.
The corners of your lips turn up so high.
I want to feel you in such a way that I can experience all of your hurts and all of your joys.
What would that be like.
How are you in the silence?
To know another soul so deeply.
So deeply that secrets don't exist and shame isn't present.
To know every dark corner of that mind.
What's it like?

In this moment I can stop.
I can listen to the life around me.
I can breathe.
I can open my blinds and let the light flood in,
or keep the illusion of the night just a tad longer so i don't wake you.
I'll let you sleep, I'll let myself enjoy the silence.