I remember six years ago
like it was last week
but another lifetime.
I can still see the office
and the corner chairs in which we rested
as I interviewed for what would later become a home.
I can recall the nerves that buzzed in me
over the unknown territory in which
I was about to step foot,
and I can hear the voicemail
that made me giddy for the opportunity
to have three weeks outside of my lifeless desert of a brain.
But this out of body experience
confuses me when I consider the fact
that I can’t fathom who that girl was,
because she wasn’t me.

When we place our non-callused feet
on the floor for the first time as kids,
there’s no way of knowing what terrain
life will throw their way.
Six years ago
my feet were fresh off of burning coals,
blistered and overly delicate to any palpable sensation.
I kept walking on those coals for several years,
too stupid to turn and direct my own path
into something less excruciating.
One of those years is so far down in
an ocean of my own despair,
I could never dive deep enough
to bring it back.

In these circumstances,
you are faced with two options:
Keep stabbing your blisters,
or wrap your wounds to let the healing in.
Well, I wrapped, and I wrapped,
and I wrapped so hard that I cut off my own circulation…
but feeling nothing felt a lot better than anguish.

Eventually,
I loosened the bandage and let the blood back in
to continue on my way.
With my mountain before me,
there was nothing left to do but climb.
Every day is spent clawing my way through rocks and rubble
as the wind tries to knock me down,
but my muscles have swollen with strength,
and my blisters have roughened to callus.

I am still climbing,
but at least there’s a hell of a view from up here.