Image By Aurélien Buttin
Text By Inny Taylor
She had remembered how smooth her hands felt when she was younger and how
later they felt scraped from the edges of every rock she touched out on her
path
And how they had almost made her rough as they were; how hard it was to be
hurt and then to heal
She had remembered how the water reached above her knees; kept creeping
higher and once she had thought: Drowning may be easier
All at once she had decided not to, she instead decided to float forward,
towards the horizon lit distance she could barely see
From the dark shadows looming in her way, she imagined holding her heart
and the hearts of her lovers in her palm, offering a lantern of purpose;
raw and still undefined
When her arms had tired from paddling she carefully lifted the skirt of her
dress, laid on her back and let the current carry her a cross the ocean of
uncertainty, leading somewhere she didn’t know
The travels had found her afraid to believe anyone ever found their true
destination before their final one but her travels had also led her to
believe the journey, thick and covered in curious surprises, created an
invisible armor that comforted her and soothed over all of her wounds
She had learned only to eat and share enlightenment she had harvested and
to sweetly yet sternly deny from others what may be poisoned as she had
grown sick before
Her fingers ran through blades of grass out in an open field of possibility
and though some sharp like a wrong turn, the more she carried on the less
she felt unforgiving for not
For all the years she was timid of the adventure that seemed to have
patches sewn with treachery, she was more timid of the cave that cradled
her and sung her the same sad lullaby every night
Is it possible to dream while you are awake; to turn fuzzy fantasies made
up of a million little pixels into realities; she began growing eager to
know
She wrote a note to all the insecurities that hung stubbornly in her
closet, folded them out neatly and packed them away
And though sleepy-eyed and fearful she undressed herself of all the heavy
burdens she had worn and set out on her own paved road of wander
When the rain came down it felt as though she was cleansed of the self she
had created only for others to see; and naked she stood free to be who she
always was
In her heart she could feel peace in her steps–courage in her breaths–no
longer afraid to lose
she knew this is when…
She had won
