What makes a life worth living? I've asked myself since that day unnamed squashed into a box in the back of my head What give you a right to be here the voices all echo as the videos play repeat bright scenes flashing scarring playing on the back of my eyelids scenes of a three year old thrown beaten stomped rejected abused a four year old neglected beaten ignored a five year old change of identity facing issues some go their whole lives without seeing five years old new mom dad family name hope a six year old loved encouraged touched you heard me touched and not the kind of touch that is acceptable okay allowed do no tell he said or you will get it I never knew what he meant by get it until I told and he made me do more see more feel more Does this make you uncomfortable? These words flowing from my pen to my mouth These are the scenes Reverberating in my skull and the skulls of others like me These Are The Demons I Live With 6 years 7 years 8 years Ages one would look back on and remember the good times I look at the pictures see all the smiles I see behind them they mean nothing to me 9 years old I have spoken My brother is gone and I feel more alone rejected destroyed from the inside out And for the next few years I knew of no person power or anything Nothing that could make me feel understand accept worthiness love hope dreams These are all foreign concepts. Have you lived without these? Without hope love dreams Neither have I. For I caught a glimpse I chose to die instead of living that shell. And as those pills screamed yelled taunted insulted My Very Existence As I struggled to swallow He reached into my heart and He said to me Child? You spit that out And you tell me Why? Why is your faith so fake? And I did. And with those pills I spit fire Into the face of God As I lamented my very Existence And He sat there As the words piled into Mountains As tall and vast As oceans are deep And he sat there Silent As I rained Tears And opened wounds And as my breath Heaved As these mountains Stood between us I turned from him And let him look at what I lived with A mustard seed of faith Will move mountains they say But what if faith created those mountains I ask? Faith in a mother Who stomped on me Faith in father Who rejected me Faith in a family Who neglected me Faith in a brother Who touched me Child He said as I cringed I do not like this word and the memories it holds Child He repeats The word floating from his lips. What will you do to make me believe? I ask as He begins to shake his head Sadly he states Child, I cannot MAKE you believe He is everything and nothing in this moment He is sad He is powerful He is perfect He is loving He is gentle He is caring He is untainted He is loving He is important And he is here with me imperfect broken rejected And the words are at the tip of my tongue And everything in me want to stop them But I ignore the warnings Rain down and destroy Rain down and destroy Rain down and destroy ME I whisper quietly the grave severity of my words hangs heavy in the air as he nods and with an unmatched force the mountains erupt into volcanoes and I am set free from what lies between us With each loving word affirming embrace the mountains are crumbling the power of words diminished And I come alive in the light of HIS grace As a part of me dies so He may Give Me Life Sometimes to stay alive You've got to **** All semblance Of your reality And look only to His I died when I was 14 And I've died every day since then As I wake up each morning and **** the part of me that deems me unworthy unnecessary The part that tells me I am not good enough Pretty enough Talented enough To be loved Because I know He loves ME And I am free From the hurt From the pain From the guilt From the burden For so long My questions are answered My everything is His and regardless of hurt heartbreak rejection loss of the past present future I have found the one my soul love. He is my beloved I am His. I belong to Him He has given me this 3rd identity rooted in Him and His love and this smile on my face will NOT be erased And this love in my heart will not be diminished Even though I freely give I have come alive in His Light And if you think I Am Too Bright Cover your eyes Because I will not be extinguished Rather I will set the world ablaze with the fire I spit in His face That he made new and poured back into me. I have been broken. I have been beaten. I have been rejected I have been abandoned But I Am Light I am hope I am love I am full of dreams The way He intended me to be What makes a life worth living? The question remains in the back of heads Across nations Across worlds Across histories And the answer lies in an identity given to me by The King of Kings The King of Glory The God of Creation The God of the Israelites The Father of the Most High The Alpha The Omega Beginning End I call him father I call him friend I call him savior And his name is *Jesus Christ