(circa September-October 2016)

I lost my way.
I realize that now. Inviting self-love back into my life, what I’m now most afraid of is the threat of losing me.
What am I like when caught between a thunderstorm and sapphire sunshine? Am I even a creature that can live without extremity?

My writing, my art, doesn’t feel the same anymore. I don’t seem to be able to summon deep sparks of authenticity or emotion or subconscious connection anymore. Without anger or melancholy or jealousy I don’t know what I am. I’m scared that everything I’ve built in myself is intrinsically tied to something dark.

Over a month ago, I lay very sick in bed. The currents upon currents in my mind momentarily slowed to align some few stars. I suddenly saw how almost everything great I’ve accomplished wasn’t entirely my own. These victories were always influenced by how others would see me, and, more importantly, by how I was mistreated, by how I was hurt.

I’m not sure if mistreatment should be motivation for beauty.

What do you do when you adapt to sadness? When you become the angel of your own prison, what comes next?

I didn’t think I would make it to my eighteenth birthday. I really didn’t. And yet, here I am, stranded between losing two precious things: my perception of me, and a way of metamorphosis in life.

I don’t know if I can light things on fire like I used to. I don’t know if I have as much to sacrifice on the pyre of creativity. But I do know that I see myself more clearly each day. I see my place here, and I’m proud of it. Me, proud of myself – can you imagine? 

I can’t hold on to shadows anymore. But the thought of letting them go, of leaving them behind, scares me. Who am I without them? Who am I underneath? What happens if a storm overcomes me somewhere out deep, and I don’t have sails anymore?

Can I trust that, somewhere within me, there is an eternal vein that powers my creativity, my beauty, my passion? As I wander both physically and mentally, can I believe that this vein will always be there, a star to navigate by? Can I weave sails out of something ancient, breathing to life phoenixes of a rediscovered way? Am I brave enough to stand bare, to submit to the wind so that the mysterious molecules can transform?

I inhale, then exhale.