If you ask me about
being strong,
or resilient,
or brave,
I’ll tell you about unfolding edges
and rebuilding
from a million little pieces
despite the wreck that remains;
and digging the dirt to bedrock
to fracture and shatter,
splinter and break.
I’ll tell you about going downward
and inward, and meeting with sorrow
and speaking to pain;
and when hell spills from your bones,
that you’ll fetch seeds from the
dried-up darkness and grow gardens
from graves.
I poured myself
into the earth;
only the flowers
would know my pain.
And I thought,
I might drown,
I might die
a thousand deaths,
before I would ever
bloom again.
But bloom I did, again and again.
I am extraordinary.
I am a wreck
and a masterpiece,
in equal parts.
I am a warrior,
I will get through
no matter what it takes.
It won’t be easy,
but I am determined
and unstoppable.
I will overcome
and rebuild.
I will bloom from the decay,
and I will thrive.
I will burn, break, and bleed.
I will wear my scars proud,
and I will rise from the ruins—
not unscathed,
but free.
There was something in the way
she dismantled herself—
the way she pulled fire from the sun
and burned;
the way she lay face down
in the rubble, breathing in
ash and despair;
the way she tasted the destruction
before she carved herself anew
from the black sky.
This is an excerpt from a piece I’ve written for my book.
DISMANTLED 