17/05/2024
Beautiful. https://www.facebook.com/share/p/Wpb1BbPw7P2FHFey/?
I once believed that making others happy might fix me.
Maybe if I made you smile, I’d find my own.
Maybe if you lit up when I entered a room,
I’d forget these dark ones I’m trapped inside.
Maybe if I was everything you needed,
I’d become everything I needed.
My first steps were on eggshells, toeing lines,
taken quietly enough to hopefully go unnoticed.
I grew atop cracked glass, afraid to run.
When all you know is being broken and used,
the idea of being whole again seems impossible.
I had to rip my roots out from dead earth and replant myself.
One-by-one I plucked out painful pieces
hurt I’d learned to live with.
Little by little I started healing and forgiving.
I didn’t find my light overnight.
Compassion and confidence grew so slowly you couldn’t notice it.
Each demon demanded to be dealt with,
and I did so afraid.
The hardest part of fighting for your life is what happens after deciding to.
They don’t talk about how far peace and happiness are from hell.
I had to give myself all the things
others stole from me.
I had to sow seeds of tenderness in places that only knew pain.
I had to find the laugh I lost long ago
and be my safekeeper.
There are flowers where
there were once horrors,
and not everyone will understand,
but gratitude grows out of the same ground tragedies are buried in.
J. Raymond
"The Same Ground"
From The Kindred Project: Vol. II
Available now for pre-order.
📸 credit: UNKNOWN