I heard the call. The call to run. But first I must stand still. Still enough to know just how far and fast I’d have to run. My boys, 5 and 2. So sweet, so innocent, so loyal. Hanging onto my legs, my every word. Looking deeply into my presence to feel the safety only their momma could muster. They love me, they need me. All of this. Triggering the vision of an engulfing, suffocating beast. Stealing all but a sip of untainted oxygen for itself. From the depths of middle earth this beast, slithering, watching, waiting. Safety was away from my family of origin. My inner child was bathed in muck and lies and deception. Hypervigilance, dissociation was living… this felt safe, ground. I was thawing from THIS freeze. Coming alive, breaking the surface, just the way they wouldn’t want me to. All of my abusers.

My true self attempting to surface, the bubbling wouldn’t stop. The dirty water no longer able to hold my buoyancy down. In dreamland, I was orchestrating this violence, killing for revenge. Long held rage and helplessness thawing from my frozen petite veins. Graphic scenes of stabbing, blood soaked, lifeless bodies, ripping knives through flesh. Ripping, like orgasmic, primal release. Always protecting myself from being wiped out – like I NEVER could. I could fuck you over just like you did to me. Kill or be killed. The delicious, giddy power of a knife, gutting as I was gutted, tearing at my power center. My aliveness gushing out like a shaken soda bottle. And you drank every drop. I felt justified, powerful, alive. You like me now? Does this feel good? just like you’d ask me.

Saving my sanity overnight, everynight. Revenge on those who want to hurt me for their own pleasure. I’ll show you what it’s like to have your guts ripped out. I can show you what it’s like to feel like an object, an option, a toy. Killing people without killing people. The dead I felt inside brought to life one REM cycle after the next.

Years and years titled The Rebirth of Me, Me Taking My Power Back, Who I Came Here To Be, Anyways. No Fucking Apologies. Me speaking my truth to anyone who would 1/2 listen. Me opening up to my experience, reaching, for the first time, for validation. My body thawing from habitual anxiety, chronic muscular tension, sinus infections, sore throats, sciatic, neck pain, gall bladder attacks, anorexia… the list goes on, long. I must be dying. I know I have a tumor. This is what they wanted. Every medical test known to man, negative. My body was trying to express and keep us healthy. Now it was time to listen. Only I could do this for myself. For my first 30 years I ran. I kept busy, I shoved it down. The souls of my children, showing me how it should have been, showing me the pure innocence, trust and love of a child. Just BEing. How it should have been. 23 years now. Standing up. Standing Tall. Standing with. Standing in. In my pain, my anxiety, my reflux, my vertigo -asking the ________ what it’s here for. What’s the message…cause there is ALWAYS a message.