"the girl who keeps reinventing herself"

“How is it that things can be okay & simultaneously not okay in the same breath?

Yet, there is something different about you today…

I can see the light beginning to peep through the cracks of your fractured heart,

Oh my dear one, I know it is a long & tumultuous road ahead.

How hard it can be to constantly be at war with yourself,

But oh sweet girl, today do you see it? Your strength has the power to move mountains…

The Japanese believe that if something breaks, the broken pieces can be made into something even more beautiful.

Hey, look up, can you see it sweet girl?

I know probably not yet..

Maybe one day you will witness the beauty that is it to be you,

Can I see it? Of course I can,

how blessed I am to have a friend like you.”

despite the horrors

the grief that persists,

my cries into the void,

Despite the kicking & screaming,

And that ache as timeless as my 1st breath drawn,

The one that runs bone deep,

despite the way it’s hollowed me out,

the chronic emptiness it’s gifted me,

my skin is still thick, and my bones dense,

And I am grateful, not for the pain,

In a way I am grateful for it,

The way it’s made me notice the small details,

And search for hope in the world,

my hope now offered as a lamp,

for those who’ve found themselves on the edge of the dark,

Despite this, at times I still find myself wandering to the dark too,

Not by choice, but due to the exhaustion,

And the calluses from carrying such emotional weight,

The cruelest paradox of it all,

Is how its kept me shackled to a life of silencing…my soul, my desires,

Inevitably locking the right people out,

And letting the wrong people in,

Safety now the same colour as pain,

Despite it all, I cherish those who stayed,

The ones who are still arriving,

And the ones yet to arrive,

My friends, who’ve seen me break,

The way you’ve all still loved me anyway,

And the multitudes of love,

I feel, for the privilege,

Like the tides that sweep in and out,