Laundry covered the bins. One sound and she’d jump in fright, were they coming for the last two months rent? She kept a flashlight near her bed because she never knew when they’d finally shut off her lights. Her fridge looked back at her, bare. Just as empty as her stomach. Cocktails. Online men. Slices in her skin. These were her escape.
Self hate had already over stayed its welcome within her mind for years now. She knew she was to be used and absused, she felt so strongly she deserves it.
Where had she learned her hate, her truth? Follow the creaking, you’ll find a door. Now you’ll see where she, at four years old, laid. Enduring hell’s darkest of acts. Snatched innocence then became blurred lines. Choices she made as a child, she could never re-make, they continually lit the fiery flames of
Self hate.
Look around in that room! Turn your head away from the bed with its ongoing crime, now what you see all around, stuck on the walls, is the inner thoughts of that child’s mind. Grief is gushing down the edges of every corner, wet, wounded. Fear so tight that the air is removed, stop holding your breath, why don’t you just, breathe? Breathe in the despair, the destitude, and that rotting flesh that’s being spoiled. You rush to the door, you have to escape, but you look back, at that child, where she lay.
Would you grab her hand and take off running? Or would you leave her there subjected to darkness’s hell?
Beauty was in the room. That child. A blossoming rose. So sweet and wonderful, you would never know, if you just leave the room. If we just hold on to the ugly truths we could forget to grab the hand of that child that needs us. A child that dreams. That will surely grow and become. That child just wants home within herself and for it to be safe.
Though now she struggles with taking care of herself. Or believing the best. She growls and she groans. Everything in that room consumes her, but she’s reminded of this. She only needs to grab the hand of that child and remind her, you’re the beauty from the pain. You. Echo in self hates ears, “I made it all these years, I survived the darkness, and I am a beautiful soul, worthy to live freely and whole.”
Beauty was in the room. That child. You. Me. We are the beauty. We deserve a field so vast to grow. We deserve to become. To dream. Freedom. Spit truth in the flames of self hate until it goes back to hell where it belongs. You’re worthy because Jesus died for us. We forgive because he died for their sin to us.. And we can be raised up from the grave of these twisted evil rooms, and all the lies/ grief they leave us in. Grab this remnant, Jesus. Don’t stay in the room. In the fear or despair. He can heal the wounds of every ‘room’ you have ever stepped foot in.
You are his love,
his beauty.
You may ask where then, was he?
While we were in the rooms, He was on the cross. And one day, you’ll never have to cry another tear.
Selah.
Life is a life regardless if it’s a criminal. At least that’s what Dave learned in his training. That doesn’t change the fact that this man is known for dealing drugs to middle school age kids.
Nonetheless when the man was about to step in front of a speeding truck, drunk, Dave was the one who pulled him back in.
At least alive he had a chance to make things right and stop the choices he was making. Would he? Would he realize he was the truck bringing about death to these children, when they needed someone to pull them back in, not kill them.
One could hope he’d finally understand the importance of, life.
Her shirt hugged the cream to the welts. Everything ached like a vulnerable nerve from a cavity that’s brokeness has been invaded. A whip on the back, chest, and rear.
The desire to please and revere above her own regard. When had it gotten this far?
The never ending cycle of used and then cutoff. A cycle she could not seem to get enough of.
She sat without the presence of neither of her masters. One that raised from the grave, that could pull her out and make a way. The other one with which she stirred the fire, the flame of her inner desires.
She realized that she’d always be the same, if she didn’t get rid of the residue of trauma, the pain. It covered every inch of her body, and she liked it, no matter how much she complained.
She had to be honest if she’d ever change. Awaken,soul, you that ache, burn, or sting. You can rise from this grave, because of the one true king.
“I don’t want to get in trouble! I can’t afford to lose everything I’ve built. I have no other choice but this.” Hayden spoke stern despite feeling squirmish.
Lacey ignored her and picked yet another tulip from the campus courtyard. There were more than twelve stolen flowers in her hand from all around campus. This was stealing, and Hayden was not okay with it, maybe if it had just been one, but Lacy just kept at it, flower after flower. What kept Hayden from just walking away was loneliness, she had no one really and was trying to enjoy time with Lacy.
Hayden has scholarships keeping her place in the university, and if the public safety caught on she imagined the worse. Perhaps they make her pack her bags and be sent home, never to return again. Hayden knew that was a bit overkill, but her scholarship functioned by no legal records of stealing. If they counted this as theft, she would lose all she was riding on to escape the life she once had.
Then what would she say to herself if she failed? Something she had always heard.
“You couldn’t do it, you never were meant to, this little black girl was never supposed to amount to anything.”
She was never even supposed to make it this far, but she had.
Lacey didn’t understand, she thought it was an innocent opportunity for a bouquet that’d die in a few days. She came from wealth. She didn’t really even want to be at school, but it was something the majority of her family encouraged and had accomplished.
Hayden constantly concerns herself with her dreams, her future, and every decision she makes counts in the journey. She was the first in her family to pursue higher education and a better life than one of poverty and addiction.
Even if Hayden did not get in legal trouble, she recognized something about Lacey, in the way she had kept picking the flowers, despite Haydens groans and discomfort. Something that would appear small, such as this, felt so heavy, weighing down on Hayden deep to the core.
“I have to get going” Hayden said with a sigh. She recognized what the real danger here was and it wouldn’t be stolen flowers.
On her solo walk home, Hayden pondered, which had died first after Lacey’s next new find? The life of the picked flower or the continuation of her and Lacy’s friendship?
Hayden knew to make it, she didn’t have to surround herself with people that had the same story as her own, but rather on her journey she had to fill her life with people whose desired fragrance would be that of prudence and propitious regard.
“Do you want to be married anymore?” She asks.
“I don’t.” He declares.
The words fell to the floor with large thuds matching the rhythm of her increasing heart rate. His confession went up against an invisible shock field, a wall, that surrounded her completely, and had for a while now. What broke through and reached her heart was the truth on his face, how he looked at her said enough, he was, in fact, done.
Something along the lines of acceptance came out of her mouth. She couldn’t make him stay if he didn’t want to be here, no matter how many years it’s been since they met, an along the way married..
She started to pack her bags. She placed some clothes in her backpack, along with her phone charger. She went to the closet and reached back into a mason jar to grab the little bit of savings they had. He didn’t object when she placed it in her wallet.
“You don’t have to leave.” He said.
These words felt like a trap. She could stay, but she had already stayed her welcome in his heart. Staying literally meant acting like the person who meant everything to her in the entire world hadn’t just decided he wanted anything but a life with her. No. She would be going. She thought to herself.
He helped her drop off her belongings to the hotel. That’s who he was, a nice guy.
She wondered if she had done something wrong enough to make him not want her. Had she let herself go? Weight? That’s all she could think of because in every other area she strived and strived to be pleasing.
No. It wasn’t her size, it was his heart. How could one imagine a life with someone they don’t love. If you love someone you spend time with then, you do things like cook, go to the gym, go for walks, go out, etc. He never did, no matter how much she begged.
Our life was comfortable. Easy. Mundane. The more she healed the more she recognized the insults, his unbelief in her to reach her accomplishments, his insults, the resistance to his own healing, the complacency he was in.
She wanted to go higher. To be whole. To walk in Gods promises over her life. To walk freedom life, joy, and peace.
She never did return to him after that day. She moved to her own place after a while. She got a new job. Makes great grades at school. She walks. She cooks. She skates. She’s healing. She spends time with God.
But there’s this feelings that came that day.. the pain. The ache. The truth of his desire.
It brings her to tears. It aches her all over. Sometimes she doesn’t even know why the sadness stays despite her attempts to fight it off, She remembers his long eye lashes, the twitch before he’s fall asleep, the laughter, the kiss that she’d barely get…
The grief hasn’t left. Though she wishes it would. Though she wishes she could grasp the truth that he was less than what she deserved. That she was loving on a one way street of grief and despair and a highly likelihood of him to cheat.
She looks back on how far she’s come. How many of her goals that she set have been reached. Yet deep down she feels that a part of herself has died. The feelings, they linger.
He’s moved on. He’s living life without her like he wanted. She’s got the life she wanted started and working at it everyday. You would think they both her were set.
She feels the only two happy of this are the lord and her ex. She just wanted her ex to grow. She wanted him to love her. She wanted him to want her.
Though,
She’s learning to want herself. To love herself. To rest in the love of God.
If you asked her if she wants to go back, if she wants to settle at that place in life, to never grow, to never heal, to be a slave to love not returned, she would look at you daringly, and say,
“I dont.”
