It started with a goodbye.
It started with me wrapping up my past
in bubblewrap, as if it was fragile.
It was really so that its sharp edges would be
unable to hurt me anymore.
I decided it was better to leave it inside
my bedside table, next to the pictures and the letters.
Not to pack it in a suitcase
and bring it with me on my many travels.
But it refused to leave my side,
it followed me, like a paper plane
guided by my insecurities.
Like I was a holding up a neon sign that read
STILL HOLDING ON.
Perhaps it was a sign that I was to carry it with me
to all the places I hadn't been but longed to see.
People asked me about the big monster
that hunkered down beside me.
But how could I tell them that
I was caught up in something
I'd promised to leave behind?
How it has consumed my mind
my body, my very soul.
How it threatened to rip a hole
in the very future I was trying to protect.
Maybe I'm exaggerating
Maybe the time I spent hating every part of me
wasn't very long at all.
But it felt like an eternity
the summer, winter and fall.
Finally, spring arrived
With hopeful eyes and a big bright smile.
I shook myself awake from what was
starting to feel like a neverending nightmare,
A rabbit hole that wasn't taking me to Wonderland
I started to understand that I couldn't go on like this.
I took a hit or miss dive into the future,
And like a magician, unlocked the weights at my ankles.
Once at the shore, I looked at my past as it drowned
unwanted and forgotten,
And I realised I was no more a crinkled mess.
With wrinkled fingertips at the end of my hand,
I held up a mirror to my freshly washed face.
I smiled, digging my toes into the sand.
It ended with a hello.