She left in the dark, under ominous storm clouds
fleeing and flying to higher ground
Just a day before, a Being whose very existence would confound even Sartre had held her tightly in its soft clawed hands. Gently stroking her face, while whispering vacuous words that now she couldn’t even remember.
She fled for her life.
And it was in the shade of crisp snow capped mountains that she breathed free again. The first true breath in ages. Weary and drained she cried to the sky and screamed at the earth, willing away all the bound pieces she carried that weren’t her own. Screeching in shadows they retreated from her, back to whence they came.
Next came the grieving.
With anguish, anger and deep sadness she thrashed against herself, tearing at her limbs and piercing her tender flesh. Inside each gash she searched for her old self. Outwardly she untamed her long silenced wildness, her unbridled madness. Lightning flashed in her eyes while she drank deeply from the rivers and streams of her new home.
But the old her was nowhere to be found. Gone.
It was buried under the ashes of destruction the Being had wrought.
In time, the frenzied madness abated, and her new self came to meet her with open arms and an assertive smile. She sat across a roaring warm bonfire, talking to herself, revealing parts of the new her she couldn’t expect to be and feared to become. It took pain and discomfort, but she let that self in.
She didn’t merge seamlessly. There were bumps sticking out of her skin like antlers or suckers, and strange movements that would take over her body at times. She wasn’t as limber as she remembered, but so much stronger then she’d ever been.
Every now and then, in the back of her mind the Being would call. It would simper and nudge- yearning for a place in her new self.
But now, the healing outweighed the grief. And she used her newfound power to pat the Being simply on the head and banish it once again from herself.
Healing isn’t linear. It won’t return you to yourself. And part of your grieving process is to grieve the you that you can never have again. But if you do. If you work through and let it come. Let the grief be inside and outside of you. If you face it head on with trembling hands and firm steps. You will come out the other side. Yes, forever changed. But beautiful and whole– resilient in your place.
