I have been blessed because…
From the first day of my life I was told I would figure it out; I’ve figured out that I won’t;
I’ve figured out that that’s okay.
For 25 years beyond that day I have felt cursed and wrong and broken.
My mother, too sick to care for herself, left my father too drained to hold on. This is when she learned to care. This, I got to witness.
The death in my life came early and I will die a million more.
All the nights I’ve spent drug-laced and destitute have led me to survival.
The tears that come with dirty flashback memory are clean.
Pain permeates my body in all the broken places. I have nothing to numb the pain. I can feel it all.
Sarcasm gets my point across more violently than truth and with less clarity, yet I am an apprentice to both.
Being forced to swallow grievances has led me to a place of spitfire.
I no longer spit fire on those that are already burning.
Hell is a cleansing, purifying transformation, readying us for heaven.
I embody transformation – victim, survivor, refugee, advocate – I embody transformation.
The last addiction I’ve to fight is to the attention I keep wishing will make up for lost time.
The love I have experienced in my life has not been real. The love I experience for myself is changing this.
My heart is threadbare, yet I learn to mend.
The broken ligaments of my spiritual body were born of wholeness and return to wholeness.
I have visited the place where Heaven and Earth kiss.
I have found a definition for miracle.
I have a key that fits inside a lock that leads to safety.
The violence I experience is only self-induced and on mental replay when I cannot hit pause.
The past holds only as much power over the present as I allow it.
The present holds as much power over the future as I am giving it in this moment.
I can hit pause.
Words flow through me like the air in my lungs – I am still breathing.
There is no hand around my throat anymore.
There is music in my bones which plays softly through my capillaries and loudly in my ears.
In the darkness of the night, I see the moon.
Indignation is not the only feeling and neither is rage.
There is a feeling called gratitude. There is also love.
When I sit down to write a gratitude list, I have something to put on it.
I have not been cursed with broken hands –
I have been blessed because they still write.
EJZ 1.27.2018
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