Sorrow sits hidden, forbidden.
Felt as a resonance,
wrapped in its own hesitance.
It points to truth, to pain,
to things darkly hidden away.
Marred in stripes and scares.
I've carried sorrow with me, unknowingly carried this far.
I unknowingly carried secrets in the deepest part of my soul.
Buried so deep, no hope of resolve.
Parts of my life are scattered,
they feel torn apart.
Parts are just shadows,
unformable, hidden,
in the darkest of dark.
There are memories I know that everyone should keep,
but I can not recall them,
they are locked down that deep.
I mean, I don't recall the inside of my childhood home.
I don't recall many things,
but I remember ‘alone’.
The strange thing is,
I know we shared rooms,
we shared meals, sat at shared tables.
My mind tells my heart,
that I should know better,
we were never really ‘alone’,
That's all in my head,
the sense that I did not matter,
that is just childish nonsense.
There were so many of us in my family home,
but each of our hearts isolated,
each of us fending, fending for our own.
Before a certain age,
I don't remember walls,
or pictures hanging at all.
I don't remember beds,
or the rooms that housed us all.
I don't remember the doors,
or the floors.
I don't remember things I know most others recall.
Intriguing to me is that there is one home that I most definitely recall.
Not my home, but one where I vividly remember, oh so much more.
I certainly remember its welcoming front door.
6 Bristol Street, Woodberry.
The home of my Nan.
That home I remember,
my imagination easily visits,
again and again.
Here I remember,
the most intricate of details.
Wallpaper, curtains, carpet,
and her treasure trove of trinkets.
I remember safe
I remember her face
I remember her table
and how she would always make space.
Something has happened to me,
of that I am sure,
and it happened so young,
that I somehow fragmented myself,
to help me press on.
Naively, I called it protection.
For a time that's what it offered,
no one aware to help bring needed correction.
But now that has morphed into an unhealthy neglection.
Neglection of vulnerable parts of myself,
never allowing me to be me,
at home in my own story.
At a very young age something caused me to shatter.
There was violence and fear.
The acts do not matter.
What moved through the home,
brought a breaking, and deep sorrow.
It made me not hope for the goodness of tomorrow.
It's only now,
in noticing the consistent hum of that sorrow,
sitting with darkness,
not with a falsehood thats borrowed,
It's in sitting with sorrow,
allowing it to be,
it's now, in that place,
I see my reflection in You, I see Me.
Now I just sit,
I make room,
I hold sorrow.
I hold my story.
Deep courage, I've found it.
Courage to fight for my glory.
It's courage, not sorrow that is central in my story.
