Vivant all the same

The details aren't easy to share so I'll stay vague.

There were insults, there were cobwebs, there were touches

That metaphorically singed my skin in the worst way possible.

But I got out.

I lived through, as we humans do.

Two years from then,

I asked the leader of the group why it had happened.

Finally free of the space I was in,

Running from my depression the only way I knew how,

I left.

For the first time, I ignored my family's devotion to finishing things.

I ran for my life because I wanted to want to live.

I started anew.

So when I poured out my heart to this once-roommate, turned villain, turned stranger,

She could only say she was trying to help me.

And I...

I knew it was true.

Cruel.

Not fully accurate because if kindness had been her aim, the insults and mocking laughter were not required.

But it was, to her, the truth.

And I wondered.

The mind is the mind is the mind.

The body is the body is the body.

We each only get one.

If I could've looked into her head, would I have understood?

If I had lived my life in her shoes, would I be the one who could ever do such a thing to someone?

Strange thing about trauma is that it's like getting

Shot

In the stomach

With a bullet.

The pain usually more emotional and mental than physical

But I compare the two now only because

The person with the gun gets to walk away.

Unscathed.

While you, my dear, have to nurse yourself back to health as best you can.

Bleeding on the ground.

Waiting for someone to save you but realising no one else truly can.

Perspective.

To be alive is to know there are infinite possibilities.

I could be a soldier, a poet, a king.

Choosing one path nonetheless with every decision and every breath,

Even as life could branch out in limitless directions.

It's yours, it's yours, it's yours.

Your life.

I know it won't always feel like that's true but

There is no greater thing to know.

It's your mind.

Your body.

Your messy, chaotic, surreal little existence till the end.

There is no one else to feel what you do,

To hold your joy and your hurt in your heart so please...

Protect yourself.

Be kind to yourself.

Please try.

We have too short a timeline to waste it trying to be good enough for people who don't fully know us.

They can't see it.

They don't know

But you do.

You're the only one who can ever know all there is in your tired heart so

Live, live, live.