Let me reach beyond this pit of seemingly endless darkness, pierce my hand through the roof of this imagined cave and grimace at the pain of the light that burns my skin. Claw to pull the weight atop that feels like a 500 lb. body that I've drug around for the last 3 and a half decades and whisper to myself that I can do this once again.
"Where did she go?"
I ask myself as if I'm literally searching for the girl that I once knew myself to be, as I stare at the blank sunken eyes in the reflection of the mirror. The woman who stood strong and built like an ox on that stage with the blinding lights and glimmer. The woman that carried her mothers ashes down those stairs that day from the crematory, picturing her frail body flung across her arms and once I let those ashes go, I never really let that weight off of me.
Weak.
Is the only word I feel that I have and I've wrapped myself within it and allowed my mistakes, anger, pain and loss engulf me.
"Where are you?"
I whisper again as I run back down the dark alleys of my thoughts in what seems to be a never ending run.
"Break free from this darkness"
I beg my heart to connect with my brain and ignite a fire in my soul once again.
"Mommy, I have to tell you something"
My little boy says in a playful, sweet endearing voice before he slips off to sleep.."I love you Mommy"
And my heart pierces and I pray that this jolt will ignite the fighting strength within me to rise back up and take on tomorrow as if it were my last day alive.
For now, I'll sleep.
I'll pray that I'll open my eyes at sunrise and this heaviness will somehow be lifted and I'll climb my way back through that black hole and I'll finally be able to fully embrace this gift that I've been given.