Cleansing Within

Darkness is something we cannot begin to fathom,

It is a scary thing,

It separates you from what truly is,

It is darker than the depths of the ocean,

Or the deepest part of the wood.

There seems to be no end.

It consumes you whole,

You feel isolated and alone,

Pretty soon your mind begins to change,

You push people away,

All you can think is no one understands me,

Then you are truly alone.

You begin to walk and then it picks up into a jog,

from a jog to a sprint,

from sprint to running.

You run away form the past that has clawed at your heart,

you cannot believe it is even still beating.

You think of every mean thing everyone has ever said about you,

posted about you on Facebook and twitter,

or thought about you.

You are so negative that you think there is nothing left going for you.

Hell,

you even wonder why you still have not pull the trigger yet to end this.

But now it begins to thunder and lighting,

The wind roars and the earth comes alive,

It pulses and finally it is beating,

raining tears of sadness.

It cries because it wonders why you have gone this far.

The you stop,

drop your weapon,

and look up into the heavy down pour.

You let the rain cleanse you within,

The lighting electrifies your heart,

the earth gives you a new pulse.

When its all over you see him there,

you tell him you love him,

and you make him promise he is not going anywhere.

This time frame in my life I was in foster care, inspired by TV dramas. It's not literal, I was really depressed and unable to leave my foster house. Watching these Novella's allowed me to have a distraction when the world was very dark. I started practicing writing in my 8th grade year and going into my senior year, I had to create a portfolio with all the creative writing projects I have ever done from 8th grade- until then. It's mind blowing to look back on my writing as an adult, and to think this came from a child. Because that's what I was, a literal child.

I had no idea what was to come in my life. I had no idea I would be divorced, or a mom to 2 boys on the autism spectrum, or that I was in the military. These poems and writing pieces I will be uploading coming up are all apart of a series I would like to call Dear Younger Me, where I reflect on my writings and how things have changed into my adult self now almost in my 30's. Writing isn't stopping, and I don't plan to do so any time soon. I also feel like it's healthy to be able to criticize yourself and see how much you have grown as a writer. How can you become even better if you don't reflect on where you started? A lot of my work has typos and some things I saw and couldn't understand where I was going with certain ideas, and truthfully, it's brilliant.

I have found that writing has been a stress relief and a form of therapy. Mentally I struggle with mental health issues, a lot of them didn't get diagnosed until I was an adult due to my parents raising me in a Christian Cult. I now am working through unwiring the identity of what I was- and the truth is, I don't know who I am. It's not a bad thing, I just now have given myself permission to create new adventures, and new memories of what I want to be and who I am now. Not the person my parents, and church members, and everyone else saw me as.

Eventually I plan to write a piece that actually does a deep dive into my experiences with a Southern Baptist Cult. That goes into purity culture, seeing demons, and growing up in a small town with nothing but pure Friday Night Lights culture. To see more of Dear Younger Me Series, feel free to follow me here on Vocal and subscribe to get notifications when I post the next follow up in this series!

-Kayla