Ink Stained Soul…

To love oneself you must know yourself. Your mind, where you stand on things without anyone’s opinion. Your body, and as a woman, how each phase challenges you as you still navigate life. People will not care the dips in your hormones and how it truly affects you in every way. You must know your heart and let it be without influence. If you cannot honor who you are with grace and awe then how can you look in the mirror? If you do not love the way your skin feels under your own touch no one else’s with light a fire inside of you. To be loved is to be known. Even more so to love is to accept all those parts in reverence. For the light dances in shadows.

In the moments of silence. As Snow covers the earth. Listen. To your breathing. To your intuition. To your heart. Everything inside that is telling you to move forward. That book you are struggle with. The boundary you let falter. The whispers your soul has been trying to speak to you. When nature gives you the perfect silent reset, answer the call within.

I’ve pivoted away from the life I wanted my entire adult life. The dreams inside could not die. Health issues derailed my path at 18. An unexpected pregnancy trapped me into a young marriage because of my upbringing. Depression, weight gain. I didn’t recognize myself. Trauma resurfaced again and again. An endless loop of mistakes that I did have roles in. I felt cursed. Still, the dreams in my heart were hidden beneath a stranger’s life. Who was I, really? Motherhood wasn’t what I wanted, and that became the role that made me fight the most. I was fighting for my children and the little girl inside me. Wanting to see them live their dreams while finding a way to have mine as well. Mistake after mistake. Self-sabotage and being tricked by the lies of others. You can’t win when the players manipulate you into places you would have never walked. It was a mix of life’s twists and my choices. Some faults solely mine. Many I was simply misled. Prey in an elite game. But my dreams are still here. Will I ever fully see them realized? Can I trust myself to get there? Has familiarity bred complacency? How can you see past the lies when they’re so skilled? What happens when things you want shift? All of this and still my dreams. That girl. That teenage version. That woman you envision in the place you can clearly see in your mind still. My dreams. The love and life I’ve always seen. It is Mine.

I am as incapable of staying small, as I am staying in a box.
I must be authentic and full of wonder. Growth sprouting out of me to always be better. My soul my shine even if it is too brilliant for most eyes.

I am so conflicted on love being a choice. Some loves are this bond, an invisible bond that pulls you to someone almost immediately. Some souls simply tug at you beyond reason. Not just about passion but a knowing you belong to them. Choosing to love them hurt, when you don’t like their actions, or even if you are not in their life doesn’t feel like a choice with certain people. It just is. You love them without question love sits inside of you. I believe it is the building a life together that is the true choice. We all change and evolve. As parts of our past shape us we must face the mirror and the fact we are no longer the person they first met. Can you choose them through every change? Can you love them as they unpack life time after time? I think settling, almost love is rooted in complacency. Comfort but hollow, as if your soul is screaming on the inside of you.

Love, what it is at its very essence loves through the mask and healing, it is still the one your soul knows. The eyes you want to see through every phase life has in store.

I am strong. I can handle myself. I was given no other choice. I long to be cared for. To rest into an embrace where I can be soft and safe. Arms wrapped around me. Guiding me, so I can let my weary mind drift into dreams. Space I don’t have to carve out in a never-ending demand that requires my sacrifice. Yes, I can do it all. I just don’t want to have to.

Everything changes, evolving as growth takes place. The sands on a shoreline building and eroding to take new shape and yet coming back to its beautiful natural state. Trees, that you only notice for a time, once they hit a certain point most don’t notice the steady steps of its inner work still taking form. Flowers from seedlings to bloom in their circle of life.
Your views, your heart change as lessons form. Who you were always meant to be becomes the thing you grow towards.
Change. Growth. Evolution. Beautiful in each stage in its own way. That is your soul, heart, body. Natural and perfectly created.

I feel you tonight. Deep in my chest, echoes of us linger like phantoms, holding me. You make me smile. The simplest things mean so much. The leaf I pulled out of my hair on that field is the only reminder that we both touched the same grass. You did it for me. I knew, somehow, in my heart, but when you told me, I felt it. I think it was you calling me to that spot – the one where I became even more me. You do that. You remind me how to love myself. I feel you all around me, in my head, my heart. Your soul is so bright for me. You lead me, and I listened to only you.

We forget. When we are busy building, dreaming, walking through life so fiercely, the fragility lying underneath the surface. Lying in bed, stripped down in illness, there it sits. Like the sweat of your brow as fever breaks or the weaknesses in your body as nothing else can stay inside you. You can be feeling as if nothing can hold you back. In mere days, you are reminded that everything is a gift. And so, when we forget, the hands of fate show us to treasure it always.

I can’t be sacrificed again. Strapped to an altar for your sacrifice. Giving my heart under the moon and stars only to have it carved out of my chest. Running as fast as my feet will go, but slashed at to wound further. Your gift from The Gods themselves, watching from their thrones as you slaughter what was meant to be unconditional. Tears shed from the sacred promise I made, even if you never heard. By the morning light, my cries will be faint, my heart barely beating. When they take me away, you will see who I was. I can’t be sacrificed anymore. And my love can’t be replicated.