Poem: Shedding armour

 As I run through these meadows

enjoying the freedom the great outdoors offer

I think of all the rooms in which I stood

hoping to fit in

All they've taught me

was how to hide

and dress myself in armour

Excusing myself and explaining why

you wouldn't love me anyway

yet at the same time

yearning to hear these words

"You are loved just as you are,

stand your ground, you are enough."

Searching for a connection

yet closing myself in solitude

Fearing abandonment

asking "why must I be?"

How deep the river flows?

How deep do the wounds reach?

Sadness gets comfortable

like a second skin

but so does anger

- showing us where it hurts,

if we pause to hear it speak

And not throw it around, 

for it grows and multiplies

If you could sell your memories, 

            would you?

Would it hurt less not to feel them

but feel the numbness of them gone

living a life of their own on the pages?

We're never finished, always falling and rising

it's only in darkness that we see the light

The person we were exists somewhere in time

You're gone but not actually gone

the image of you interchanges

Some people never leave -

names linger in the chambers of our hearts

like memories behind a tombstone

They've left, but not actually left

souls hang on to each other,

intertwined.

*

Inspired by book Binding by Bridget Collins.