I fall
just like a child,
in and out of melancholy

I climb a mountain every day
but I feel as if I I’m sitting at the bottom dragging my feet

I search for contentment,
for inner joy
in temporary doses of serotonin

My therapist is teaching me to love myself
I didn’t realize how bad it was
I asked her why I hate myself so much

I can see myself as a child
small and afraid
in need of someone’s hand

Now I reach out to them
I hold her close
and tell him the words I wish I had been told

There still within me
deep in my soul
behind all these years and avoidance
They still need me

I don’t have to prove myself anymore
I just have to be kind
and say the words I wish I had been told

I’ll pick up my feet
and take a few steps

So I may find myself
and forgive my faults

So I may reach a peace within my soul

So I may love my whole self and move forward

I sit and wait for the call to begin
I ponder what I'll say
or if I'll learn anything
While the dread settles in

I don't like myself right now.
I see patterns and look for answers
I'll think I might be getting closer to closure,
but in the end, only  assumptions are found.

"Why do you need to know?" She asks me.
Because I feel like a well.
The Sun appears and I become dried out,
a storm rumbles in and I'm overflowing.

People visit me rarely
each time they do, I become more empty.
They come to me because they get something
They don't stop and sit with me, they want what I function.

Sometimes they paint me,
or add a layer to my shell
They might gift me an accessory
because for them, it will help.

It makes them feel better,
when how I look brings them comfort,
They think everything changed
But I'm still a well they never visit to connect.

I'm a well that sits on a hill,
They think I'm out of reach
but I'm here, left out
Someday I'll be the well that fell.

I remember sitting in the garden of my therapists office, trying to feel the sun on my skin.
She asks me if I can feel the warmth and no matter how hard I try, I can't seem to find it.

It took me 14 years to say those few words that changed everything.
When my lips formed the whispered sentences, my shaking body suddenly felt so very different, even though the same things I was talking about happened to the same body.

When you start telling the truth, even if you can't build up the courage to speak all of it, a few words are enough, it becomes reality.
It's been real all this time, but now that it's entered someone elses mind, you can't take it back.

And maybe that's what it takes. To start your healing.

Speak your truth, even if your voice is shaking.

I'm in my villian era;
That is to say
I'm in my intolerant era
My "I don't give a ****" era
My "I don't have patience for peoples emotions and stupidity" era;

Except its not an era
It's a day
A week
It is a come and go feeling that helps me to function and push forward,
It is an intensity
A fire burning, but not from anger
It is power and control
It is a wall
It's still kind, but different, tainted
Searching for the motive, the string, the catch
proceeding wearily, lacking child-like faith.

It is the only way to protect myself,
demanding respect
To declare that statement:
"Don't **** with me"
To be a sheep in wolf's clothing
Until I feel safe enough to rid myself of this hyde.

I'm neither the mirror nor the reflection
I'm neither the presence nor the absence  
I'm neither the fool nor the sage
I'm neither the seeker nor the finder
and
I'm neither the sky nor the cage

I am someone I haven't been
since
I am somewhere in between and something unseen
But if I do know a thing
is that
I am sewing what I am with the not's that I keep clean

In the pasture of moonlit dreams
they sought the music and the seams
of realities caged by beams
of light hidden in a tomb of sins...

With brush
and pen
they strove
again
to awaken a long-lost friend

Humanity's aid, the devil's ruin,
a savior beyond what's worth pursuing,
for all are judged by saviors awakened
cast in iron
cage awaiting
time unwrought from plans abating
devil's deeds no longer
contemplating
their yields and wicked whims
now dating
cobwebs conjured
by idleness, hungered
schemes distorted
abandoned plunder
salvation came to the sleeping world, hence
for the devil's slothfulness made pence
duplicity broke itself in twain
devils freed and angels made
war in heavenly realms abound
demonic trickery, no longer purchase found
light shone down from truth above
o'er horizon, burgeoning sun commanded its wake
cast its sight upon the world
devils expired as does smoke unfurled
as do shadows in all-consuming light, unmade
and what became of that world then?

When the sun may set, we shall learn again...
What darkness shrouds, we forget, so too the pain,
for what the light sears, the darkness cools,
and what the light frees, the darkness feeds,
what the light starves, the darkness protects,
what the light feeds, the darkness drains,
what the darkness drains, the light protects,
what the light protects, the darkness hungers,
what the darkness hungers, the light favors,
what the light favors, the darkness despises,
what the darkness despises, the light understands,
for well made plans cannot thrive in darkness alone,
if the light should reveal the plans to be tainted
the zenith of sun shall burn the plagues of satan...

I was floating in honey.
The viscosity of the substance
Made it so that, while I still needed to work
To keep my head afloat,
I had a little extra support.
So I didn't have to do it alone.
And it was good.

But my temperature began to rise.
I became too hot too fast, and,
Because of my actions
I started to destroy the beneficial parts
That the honey needed to remain useful and healthy.
So the honey reacted:
Threw my melting self out of its jar.
I tried to jump back in
But the honey firmly ******* its lid back on,
And my charring fists
Fruitlessly pounded on the boundary
The honey had erected.

Then as my body and brain burned,
The other honey jars disappeared-
Distancing in acts of self-preservation.
I knew how I could get my temperature
Back to baseline.
I just needed a little help
So I could work to get back to my normal self.
But my actions had pushed away what I needed.
So I accepted the fate I had caused,
And allowed my body to fall to ash.

I never noticed before
Just how much I like control.
Structure, routine.
These things keep me grounded.

I was always made to go with the flow;
The rules, never my own.
When I flip the pages and read my thoughts
I notice I never liked being torn away from focus.

I loved to sit and work on my passions,
Never cringing at myself for being interested.
I think I learned to dislike my interests
Because others didn't and that was cringe to them.

I was made to follow but told to be a leader,
I'll never know which is better or why.
I don't understand the logic or matter,
Can't everyone decide what's important?

For my parents it was tradition,
What was taught to them
and likely the people before,
The question is where does blame lie?

I would be ripped away from creativity,
To be forced to finish my plate and more,
Promised desserts I never received,
To instead dissociate and remain unfree.

I think this was so damaging to me.

My mom took me back through her thoughts,
Shared stories of how troublesome I was,
She said I always had issues
with being torn away from my tasks.

Tells me it wasn't serious,
But she and others beat my ***.
I have to wonder how I felt then.
I was only three and hurt so often.

I decided to skip the yelling eventually,
I'd go to the corner for thinking differently.
Until I would turn and say okay to my mom,
Who'd laugh at me for being upset.

It's interesting how she doesn't see it.
I have always had a hard time with transitions,
Child, teenager, adult, it's been hard.
And I am going to learn why.

When I was young I wrote about
How therapy was always trying to trawl me treacherous
With only having gone a handful of times as a child.
Today therapy is a friend to me,
Only trying to tear my troubles from my treacherous hands
To help me understand where they come from
And where I stand.