I feel like i have no way to express myself. i want to speak without speaking. i feel like i've been going through all these spurts of emotion. there's been an ebb and flow of feeling. it floods me, it recedes, it returns. and i am left to brood over it. lost in the confusion of my dichotomous thoughts. i struggle to make sense of everything, and...i just can't. my heart flutters, beats faster, then feels like it's slowly cracking into a million pieces. and then, within five minutes, it's whole again. somehow i feel like the only way to mend the pieces, to TRULY mend them, to seamlessly glue them back together in such a way that they cannot again easily separate, is to have my heart break completely. for the pieces to shatter as if by an explosion, to feel the sharp and bitter shards of my no longer beating heart sink down to the soles of my feet. and then, to have the smithereens removed from me, held in the hand of something greater, where they can be mended in a way that i could never achieve myself. a restoration. whole, complete, fulfilling. and then to have my rectified heart placed within me once more, and for it to beat with the life and vibrancy it once knew.
i used to paint. i used to write poetry. that was when i had inspiration. but something has died inside of me. and the piece i lost, ran from me. ran far away. or did i push it away. yes, that's what happened. i pushed it away. as though it stood before me on the edge of an abyss above an open, endless sea. and when my questions became too much for me, i pushed it. into the water. but it hasn't died. it struggles for air. flails its arms in the water. reaches for me. cries out for me. drops its tears into the salty waves, like the tears that fell from my eyes into the sink as i brushed my teeth, or the tears that stain my pillow late at night when i can't sleep. and this piece of me, sometimes i miss it, sometimes i see it swallowing the water, but fighting nonetheless. so i try to save it. i reach into the fearful waters, and i grab a hold if it. i start to pull, to try to save the piece of me that i abandoned, but when i look into its eyes, and realize the inconceivable power that stares back at me, i freeze, i panic. i become overwhelmed yet again with all the questions these deep eyes present. and so i let it go. i wrench its desperate hand from my own, and i watch it struggle to breathe. and i walk away. dont look back. maybe for a day, a month, 3 months. but i always feel it. reaching for me. i hear it crying out to me. and i go back to the water's edge again. now i, not only my emotions, have become an ebb and flow. to the water. away from it. back to the water. sometimes i run from the water's edge. i run and run and run until i can't breathe anymore. and sometimes, i tell myself that i MUST walk away. i force myself to. and yet, i dont know why. i turn back, again and again. look at the piece of myself which longs for me. and i long for it. yet i continue to walk away. and the funny thing is, i never really want to. i just do it.
that piece of me that i pushed away so long ago, it was once the piece that completed me. made me whole. i remember what life was like then. everything was beautiful, everything was inspirational, meaningful. that's why i painted. that's why i wrote poetry. because i could literally feel every ray of sun soak into my skin. every breeze that passed by me was like a breath of life. every leaf, in all its intricacy, waved to me. every person was precious and significant in such a way that i couldn't help but give my life, my heart, away to everyone i knew. these were the days when i knew what it felt like to be alive. and now, part of me is dead. but yet it's not. it still struggles for life in the water, just waiting on me to reach in, to put aside my fears, to pull it out, and allow it to become one with me again. but i'm too afraid. i'm too damn scared. and why? would i rather be dead? no, i wouldn't. but i need help. i can't do it by myself. when i walked away from that piece of me the first time, so many people who claimed to love me walked away from me. and suddenly, i wondered what i had ever meant to them. had my value as a friend, as a human being, rested solely in this piece of myself? and when i walked away, so did they? is that all i was to them? a belief? a feeling? a hope? but not a person? a sister, so to speak? were we not "family?"
i struggle. im confused. part of me is gone. i feel dead. but the truth is, im alive. im still here. and im still fighting. i bring myself to the water's edge more and more often. im still fighting. im still here. im still alive. that is truth.
