You forgot the ocean that pounds through your blood.
Fell asleep to the powerful creator inside.
Snap out of it, Sister.
Wake up hard and soon,
before the weedy grasses grow over your face
tacking you to the ground.
You were born to fly.
Wings pressed tight against shoulder blades,
ready to unfurl at your behest.
Shake sleep off your body.
Stomp yourself back to life.
Do not let the world lull you into complacency.
Release everything you’ve been told
about how to be, who to be, or what you should aspire to.
Slip from the noose in a chorus of hallelujahs or f*ck yous – whatever works.
Dig up your shadow from the place you last buried her.
Brush off dirt.
Twigs.
Worms.
Resuscitate her until she roars back to life.
Stitch her to your heels so you do not lose her again.
Without her, you are half a human.
SHE is what makes you whole, not another.
Show your shadow the sun.
Allow her to cast dark twins of you
across the ground wherever you go.
She is your compass pointing home.
One day you’ll laugh over how you were mistaken –
How you sold off the best parts of you to be liked, accepted, given a semblance of belonging.
Laugh because the only thing that could take you there
was the thing you learned to exterminate.
For now, it is enough to rewrite the story:
Breathe.
Scream.
Slash.
Destroy.
Tear all the pages out of the rule books by hand.
Grin at the devastation you’ve wrought.
Then dive head first into
the salvation found in your own embrace.
Home.
Belonging.
Free.
At last.
previously published on The Urban Howl, October 2016