To Everything That Held Me Down, Now I Will Rise

To fear,

I used to find a home in you and I’m sure that anytime I visit I’ll still find that home, that comfort. I’ll find everything safe and everything usual, but I grew tired of the safe and usual. I grew tired of delusions pretending to be real. The only time you were real was whenever you reached out to choke me. You grew possessive and that scared me more than anything else did.

To settling,

You lied to me when you told me you were good enough, you never were. You fell in love with fear because it stood by you and tied the knots in the ropes you held to my wrists. You fell in love with an illusion, that’s why you were miserable.

You looked for satisfaction but all fear left you with was tolerance. Tolerance that grew into a fitted cell with darkness for walls. A cell in the form of a female body that can only go as far as her skin stretches, nothing beyond what she was told.

To turning a blind eye,

You felt a lot like forced ignorance, I was aware of you anyway. You told me there was nothing to do about the pain that was inflicted upon us time and time again. You told me forgiveness makes people happy, you didn’t tell me it was just a façade. You didn’t tell me that forgiveness breaks you on the inside.

You also didn’t tell me that you had forgiveness confused with self-worthlessness.

You didn’t tell me that consciously letting people hurt you wasn’t the same as forgiving them for their slip-ups. Forgiveness is a virtue; you weren’t.

To acquiescence,

You were benevolent to the world and cruel to me. You stood on my chest and got heavier with every word you never spoke. You always made sure everyone was getting their way, but what about what I wanted? What about my needs and my wishes? What about the hurricanes choking my throat?

What about every time I had to concede to things I never agreed to just to keep the river running?

The river ran and I couldn’t face the currents with you shackling me down. I don’t want to drown in a foreign river.

To trust,

I was very liberal with you. You are not to be trusted. You’re the trigger to a grenade I keep handing to the wrong people and every time I trust you, you fall out. Every time I trust you, you shoot shards into my veins. Every time I trust you, I take longer to recover and even when I recover, I’m still missing pieces.

To anxiety,

You guarded me; you were the kindest to me. I had a fucked up definition of kind. You were abusive and sadistic. You knew every crevice I had and you used my insecurities against me. Magnified every mishap and every doubt and silently screamed slurs into my head, breaking every fiber of strength I had gathered up. Masked into self-care, you slowly reined me into a hamster wheel, told me it’s the safest place to be.

To unmerited kindness,

You soothed me, brought me content. You put me on a pedestal but it wasn’t grounded. I forgave people that went on to take my understanding and compassion for granted and turned around to twist a knife into the nape of my neck. You look weak despite your strength, but people only care about looks and they exploit the weak.

To adoration,

You were my red cherry wine; I was an alcoholic. I always put you first and you never cared. I loved you anyway but your selfishness gnawed at my knees till I was down at your every egocentric beckon.

You drained my soul into a flask and kept it above your fireplace, but the fires were never warm, always cold. You took and I let you, you asked and I gave you and everything you gave back was fragments of what was already mine. You stripped me of my love and told me I was born bare; convinced me that I needed you.

To all the habits that broke and bent, tore and pushed and shoved. To the habits that owned us without right, to the habits that took without consent and to the habits that had an ego bigger than our strengths. To all the habits that contorted spines into slaves and stole pieces of flesh.

To the faces and the cigarettes they smoked, to the thieves of choice and the burden bringers; to all the people we quit and to the habits they mandated upon us.

To all the habits we drained out of our systems. To all the habits that no longer control us and to the habits we no longer fear. To the habits that are now strangers walking past us like wind,

Thank you.

And to myself,
You’re whole now.