I’m consciously letting this storm catch me.

Everything is gravity mocking blur and I can barely see or breathe or think as things are ripped and washed away.

Sometimes when I stand in the eye of this, I come face-to-face with a younger version of me.

She is devastated.

Joyce Lee’s prompt was forgiveness. I ask it of myself

***********

My Child,

Forgive Me
For even though I was you I do not know you
Instead of being you I was obsessed with getting as far away from you as possible

I abandoned you and now I don’t know how to approach you

How do I convince someone I hated and tried to kill to trust me

I wasn’t educated on tenderness, love was a conditional commodity constantly withheld so I was never held long enough
I thought it was my fault
Your fault

I’m so sorry
I took care of everybody else
Anybody else
But you

I treated you like you were wrong because others were wrong to you but I should have been on your side
Instead of making you the issue I should have protected you

I don’t know how you survived it all
I don’t know how you got us here
It’s okay to be tired, frustrated, confused angry and symptomatic
You crossed the finish line barely and bleeding

And even though you drug me over with you I treated you like you were the burden
the chains around my wrist and the shackles at my ankles
I believed I was hobbled by you
And now I am humbled by you

Forgive me
Forgive me for forgetting the feeling of you in my own body

I want to remember

I want to remember the taste of your laugh in my mouth and if that means recalling the terror in your tears I’ll do that

I’ll go back with you for you, for us
I’ll hold your hand
I’ll stand besides you
I’ll whisper in your ear how beautiful you are, how worthy you are, how ineffable you are

When she closes her fingers around your throat I’ll be the steadying hand on your shoulder
I’ll be what you see when you look past the right side of his red and heaving face

My Child,
I’m that thing you felt sitting on the edge of your bed after midnight
That thing that wrapped its arms around you and held you as you cried yourself to sleep

My Child,
I’m the voice you were heading towards
I’ll be here to meet you
I am here to meet you
To catch you and protect you

And I’ll spend the rest of my life in the love of a lifetime with you

Photo credit: 401 Years by Christina Tatkoff