I breathe

With everything in me I wish this was true. I wish I had the feistiness my flaming hair demands. But I feel only pretty pathetic pathos. I sneer at the vision of myself, lying broken on the floor, begging for mercy. Putrid docility.  

I fought. I’ve been fighting for years – and in the face of battle I have lost my own. Stages of innocence, faith, determination, strength scowling on a dirt-ridden face. All to be replaced by an empty stare. Void of all: the innocence, the faith, the determination and the strength.

I used to think that I will come full circle. That I will end up believing the way I did once. That the child-like faith will be restored. I see now that I am on a one-way path. So I shed my wings. The holes in my back still raw; my own screams echoing through my mind whenever a memory hits me from behind and the fresh blood flows over the scars.  

No going back. With a dry, cracked throat I move forward in silence. I’m done crying out. I cut hope’s noose from my neck. I will learn to walk again.

As I venture beyond the end into a light-deprived, new beginning, I breathe. I don’t need to be the dragon. The fire within will light up once more to reveal the beauty within a quiet strength.