Words: Seeing Hidden Truths

I was 15 when my mom took away all my books. It’s an odd thing to take away from a child, but for my mom it wasn’t—it was another aspect of my life she could control, taking my freedom to think, to feel, to create.

But she didn’t just take away my books: she took my boyfriend, my friends, my dad, my sister (my best friend), my ability to connect, and my future.

She isolated me.

I. had. no one.

For years, I felt nothing but numbness as the life slowly drained from my body as if I was being poisoned.

Before my mother took my books away, I would read fairy tales and romance to hide the pain and bring out the happiness I couldn’t find. I read to tread the path of non-existent worlds; to forget that I lived in a dying one.

But, when I no longer had worlds to climb, I was left to drown in the real world. Drowning in thoughts I could not navigate through because I had never done so myself. Drowning because I had never been taught how to swim. Drowning because there was no one to save me in my icy cold water world. 

But, slowly, my parents stopped injecting copious amounts of poison into my fragile veins and I was able to feel the scars that lined my skin and the pain that beat in my chest.

But, it still wasn’t enough and my body was growing tired of treading the unstable rules of my parents. 

Years. It took me years to touch the rough spine of a book, flip through the pages with delicate fear (but love), bask in the rustic aura of beautiful mysteries while the sun of reality warmed my skin to a glow. It took years to be able to feel whole like that again.

And it was after all those years, when I read The Memory of Sun, that I saw that the shore was only feet away. My vision had unclouded to reveal the truths of life that had remained hidden: I was alone, but I didn’t have to be lonely, I was not okay, but I could be, I was alive but I was not living, I was being abused, but I could find the strength within myself to accept and progress. With books came stories, with stories came words, with words came human emotions, with emotions came initiation for change.

So, now I hold words backed by human hands, close to my heart for they are my eyes for the world. And I hunger to explore all the truths that lie beyond my knowledge, for it gives me purpose, it gives me hope. 

If it wasn’t for when at 15 my abusive mother took away my books to control me, I never would have been able to bleed poetic truths in beautiful contrast; so I am thankful for the journey that life has led me through—and I am ready for more.