Grateful

I walk differently. As a calm soaks into my bones, I no longer fret even as the adrenaline courses through me. I focus on controlling my breathing and absorbing the energy surrounding. In this I find comfort as events unravel and expose themselves. In this I practice belief in myself.

The nightmares have shape shifted into an awareness of my reflection in you. I know I will always remain a part of you, and you remain a part of me however I will not deny that I know in my bones you're better off now without my burdens upon you. I do not allow sorrow to stain the precious memories we shared. I do use my memories of my weakness back then to fuel the forge. I hope you never watch me burn. I hope you never wonder what if.

I enter the room with the crimson door. A place familiar and the hair on my arms stands up in anticipation of the tribulation at hand. I endure my emotions with focused intention. I suffer through understanding the price of my sins. I focus on counting my blessings. All that remains after everything was lost is me in this damned room. Where the candlelight flickers flinching at the agony of my silence. My breath soothes my chaos as they entangle and shiver. In these memories I see how God didn't abandon me, but I abandoned it. It's like drowning in the vast sea of space as time stops interacting with me. The truth remains of what I must become. My fate was sealed before I arrived to this dimension. I can no longer ignore that resistance is futile and that my soul must ascend into destiny.

Broken thoughts and bruised skin suffocate me as I stagger from the room with the crimson door. I clear the blood from my lungs and notice I am unable to feel my heart beating. The fire within me is the only thing holding this body together. My vision becomes blurry as the screaming static returns. I do not seek to walk through the door that is death. I seek to overcome the violence within me. I believe my father couldn't keep it from me. As it destroyed him it surely tries to eradicate me. The truth will not let me ignore my power of empathy.

There is a truth within your eyes that fascinates me. You want to let me in but you know the past as well as I do. I let you down and I do not flinch when I say it. As I build the ladder to heaven I have found the truth that some of us never leave hell. I still linger in the smoke and sorrow but I no longer have to react. It just reminds me of where I came from. It reminds me of what I adored about you. My memories are tainted by the suffering I caused you and yet I had to find a way to forgive myself. It wasn't their god I worshipped. It wasn't their broken system that could hold me down. It was always just me lost within. As I pull out the inner child once abandoned by self I remember how precious you were to me. How the evil of the world served you beating after beating and I wasn't strong enough to protect you. I accept the reality that maybe I never will have a second chance to love you like before. I accept that as I heal more people abandon me. If i'm honest I abandoned the past reflections of myself. This is how it must be. You are alone. as am I. Yet the dreams still reveal a yearning to enter your shadow and pull your light to the surface again.

I was always the one who held back at the cost of my mind and soul. I was always the one who couldn't break through the fear to love truly relentless. That's how the past will always choose to witness me. At least the past whispers this nonsense in my head. I never sleep anymore. I am lost within a fractured dream of events that can't be spoken for they can not be described by words.