In The Cracks of Light

It is the sun speckling my forearm with radiant kisses as my hand guides through the ebs and flows of the wind, my hair leaving wisping traces across my cheeks as I head through nothingness disguised with cornfields and patches of woods that have turned green for a season. In those moments where melodic soliloquies transport me into another realm of poetic fantasy, that is where I can be truly beyond what my body so viciously remembers.

As I hold the most precious reminder of overwhelming love, I am jolted into a reality that was once mine. Memories that have been designed to haunt me for eternity. Even with a new season, the immense, deafening snarl of the former beast that lay in anticipated waiting pulsates through my chest, causing my breaths to be shakily paused moments on end.

When the returned beast from the depths gets awoken, it is difficult to maintain the hunger that it possesses. The angst that comes with the need to take away any shred of decency that has been maintained outside of it's razor-clawed grip, is immediately felt through the marrow of the bones. The taste for blood becomes anxiously unbearable the longer the beast remains on the surface- like a rabid fox looking for its next unaware victim. And my breaths remain paused, as I now have to choose which path is the least resistent.

Time is not a construct of man. Especially when it joists oneself back into the most devastating tribulations that have ever been endured. Time then becomes the warden of the jail cell that traps the accused, yet again, awaiting trial. A revolving door of life sentences has been handed down to the accused, however, no one can outrun time and the sentence that it keeps for the guilty. Like the beast lying in wait, Time is just as cruel and intentional with its punishment. Constantly reminding that no one is better off or better for withstanding the trials of destruction that they have endured. There are no survivors. The guilty is the inferior mouse and time is all superior cat looking to keep them as its play thing. Used for its amusement and then disgarded into a holding cell until the next cycle of boredom comes back around. A ferris wheel of hell.

April was supposed to be the absolute sparkling moments of my life. Soaking up motherhood. Soaking up learning about who I was going to be for you. It was going to be the time that I met my truest love. Although all of those things came true, they came in a fashion that knocked the literal breath out of me. May showed up ready to box me right out of the ring of life that I stepped foot in. No toe to test the water. A literal shove into the unknown world of dodging blows and blocking punches. Ragged and torn, shattered and bruised, I never begged for an escape. I held my breath as you would if you were playing a game of hide and seek and you didn't want the seeker to know that they were close even though they were inching closer and closer to your spot of security and safety. I held my breath so tightly that my lungs were sure to erupt. Hidden I stayed for fear that understanding would never be found. Crippled with loneliness, guilt, shame kept me surrounded by the darkness of hiding.

Time is wicked. Memories are cruel. My body remembers every emotion, every moment, every scream, every piece of my heart hitting the literal floor of each room and corridor that we moved through. Time does not heal your wounds. It holds its place for when it comes time again to wake up the beast of memories and roars loud enough that your body viciously attacks.

It is the night enveloping my whole being with suffocating nothings as I hold my breath through the ebs and flows of the panicked memories, my tears leaving wisping traces across my cheeks as I head through nothingness disguised as a poorly lit fort that has offered a safe haven in the torment. In those moments where silent screams transport me into another realm of reoccuring nightmares, this is where I am reminded that this pain I will carry for evermore. A punishment governed by time and carried out by the beast hungry for pain. And try as I might to hold my breath until it is all over, I am always found in the hiding spot of pain.