Self expression is a double
edged sword.
It can cut you open and
leave you to bleed.
Spilling your soul onto the
clear blanket of eternity.
Giving you the freedom
to say what you want no
matter the outcome.
The constraints of society
split
like the sea before Moses.
Holding nothing back.
You must accept the bite of
the blade.
Take it into yourself and
let it set you free.
Or it will swing back
and the cut will go deeper.
You will be trapped within
yourself.
Instead of being free,
you will be buried beneath
the pain.
Just like I was.
For so long, I was trapped
in a cocoon.
Afraid to be myself.
Afraid that if I showed
myself to the world,
no one would accept me.
The courage to be who I am
was buried underneath
the broken child I used to
be.
It has taken years for the
child to fade
and the woman underneath emerge.
Years spent afraid to stand
out.
Always giving in to other’s
desires,
making them my own.
Afraid to take what I wanted
because others would not
like it.
For so long I was about
pleasing others.
Being like them so that they
would like me.
The broken child starved for
affection.
Any kind was craved, even
welcomed.
She didn’t know the
difference
between real affection based
on truth
and the affection based on
lies.
She still lives inside me
crying out for love and
affection.
Only now, she is not in
control.
Slowly the shackles of fear
are falling away.
I am becoming free to be who
I want.
Secure in the knowledge that
it doesn’t matter if people
like who I am
because I am the only one
who matters to me.
I have taken control of the sword
that once shredded the
person I was.
Now it lets me loose
to be the person I was
always meant to be.
