Tension

There is a tension between who I am now and who I used to be and who I thought I might become.

The past is something I cannot escape and the present is not the embodiment of the future I had imagined.

There was a girl, once, who was light and sunshine.  She was wild and free and made of all the things that have no boundaries; like the sea and the sky and watercolors.

There was a girl shattered.  Made of fragile, broken pieces, begging to be left alone.  Begging to be saved.  Begging to fall asleep until the pain faded away and left her hollow.  And so she was.

There is a girl now, pieced together with reinforced steel and made strong.  She lives like the seams of reality are nearly bursting all around her.  She walks delicate and smiles softly and tries not to say too much, tries not to disturb the fragile seams around her.  She holds herself together like all the pieces might tumble out if she moves too fast and keeps her mouth closed to keep in the secrets.

There once was an idea of a woman, bold and beautiful and breathtaking.  A woman who wore scars like charm bracelets and told the tales of her past the way warriors told stories of war around the fire.  That woman was made of gold, spun thin into thread and woven through sunlight and glass and grace and magic.  That woman was everything.  She was a goddess and a princess and a warrior.  She was a dream and now she is a memory, a ghost standing on the bank of a river, just out of my reach.

These girls that existed, this girl who now is, and this woman who once was meant to be, they pull at the edges of myself.  Begging me to relapse, begging me to sleep, begging me to stand tall, begging me to reign.  The tension is too much, the skin pulled too tight, the limbs pulled too many directions like being drawn and quartered.  The tension takes over and I shut my eyes and will them all away.  Let me be.  Let me sit in silence without the pain, just for one moment.  Just one second without the tension would be a reprieve.