Sacred Journey

You bellow from the other side of the door, calling me names. You bang on the door, threatening me. I've locked myself in the bathroom again. I turn on the water in the sink and the tub to drown you out. I start singing a song as loud as I can. I'm singing off key, but I don't care. My throat is raw. 

I pray that you do not force your way through the door. You have before. I trust that you don't want to break the door. That is something you have stopped doing. 

I sit here staring at the wall, half catatonic. My legs are shaking, and no matter how hard I try, I can't stop them. I'm not shaking because I am afraid. I'm not afraid. I just can't take anymore. You don't stop. You never stop. You've been hammering at me for hours. You just want me to see—you won't stop until I see, but I understood what you were trying to say before you finished your first sentence. 

I don't know how I’ve gotten to such a state, and yet, I know exactly why I haven’t left. Every time this happens, I wonder how I could still be here where you can do this to me again, and yet, I know exactly why I stay. 

You keep screaming outside the door. You've been screaming outside that door too many times. Sometimes you go on for days. You use to go on for weeks. 

Pain snakes its way through my soul until I bleed. I know the source, and I do nothing to stop it. I let my life torture me in penitence. I do not try to stop the things that harm me. You tell me that I am the worse thing that can happen to my children, and I do not try to fight your cruel words I do not leave. I let myself bleed as if bleeding with stop the torture. I never stop trying to be good, and I never stop believing that I am bad. I never stop telling myself that I am beautiful, and I never stop believing that I am truly ugly. I don't even know what it is that I need so badly to pay for, but I cannot stop letting myself bleed. No one made me be here. No one made me stay. I stay to pay. I am standing in the shadows. I look out at the sunshine, but I deny myself entrance. I am shadow. 

The deeper my pain, the more I feel alive. It is the only thing that I am allowed to feel. If not for the destruction of my pain, I would not feel anything. I see the child of my past who should have been innocent. I see her thin frail body and her pale skin. I see her eyes reflecting shadow. 

I want to reach out to her, but I cannot. I am afraid that I will break her. I am afraid that I will destroy her. I am afraid of my will. I am afraid of the power of my intent. I do everything inside of me to protect those around me, from me. I make myself behave. I make myself be good. If I do not, I could destroy with my will. I could bend and break the minds of those I love—and that is not love.

You challenge me with your rage. You challenge me with the nasty things you say. I have never heard anyone talk like you. I want to be shocked. I want to be innocent. I want to pretend that I am appalled—but I cannot. I am standing in the shadows, and I am tired of pretending that I am anything that I’m not. For, I am shadow.

I see freedom in the worst of mankind. I see the worst in the hate in your eyes and the venom of your words. I see myself bleeding, and I realize that I don't want to bleed anymore. I see the truth of all that I am, and I realize that I can live with the worst, and perhaps, I can even find the best. I will not be with you when I do. And, it is okay. I am shadow. 

I lay my tear stained face on my bare knees. I came to you to get away from a bad situation, and I have once again traded bad for worse. I've been here too many times. No matter how hard I try, I keep finding myself coming to this same spot in my life. Over and over, I am here, wondering how I got here, wondering how come. I can't stop the cycle.

It is a cycle not of violence but of despair. It is an exact moment, a moment when I pinpoint my deepest unhappiness. It is the moment I realize, yet again, that I have not moved beyond this place, that I am still stuck where I don't want to be. It is the moment when I try, once again, to figure out how I got to be here. This is the place where I question everything I've ever done. This is where I wonder how I'm to go on if I cannot even get myself beyond this moment. 

This moment when I have to face the fact I am still stuck. But then again, perhaps I am not stuck at all. Perhaps this is exactly where I want to be, feeling this deep pain, locked in despair. 

I am shadow. 

For, I stay to pay. I stay, to pay for not being a good elder's daughter. I stay, to pay for not being what I was supposed to be. I stay because, as I write this to you and the world reads what I write, I know my family will pay the price. I stay, because I couldn't believe, and because I couldn't believe I lost everyone. 

I stay because of the truth—their truth, the only truth. I stay, because I must live with the fact that their truth is a lie, and my family is between me and that lie. I stay, because the pain of failing my family will never die. 

They said that you will know the truth, and the truth shall set you free. And even though I now know that their truth was never truth in reality, I stay, because what they have taught me will never set me free but will torture me until the day I die. I stay because you make me bleed, and as long as I bleed—I live.