Lost
It wasn’t the first insult
It wasn’t the first insult that broke me.
It was the second one that sounded almost reasonable.
Then the third
that made me question
whether I deserved it.
It wasn’t the first time I’ve loved in this manner
where fragments of self never came together as a whole to matter.
Not all hit at once when all became eroded
Like water
against stone
coming undone to the scars that linger with a beating heart
patient, uncertain the wear cut deep slowly leaving traces of
an existence that simply became a pathway.
Laughter dwindled first.
Voice never as here I stand.
Then the space I took up in a room
slowly erased.
And I believed in those moments
shrinking became enough.
Apologizing or breathing too loud,
for asking too much,
for existing in ways that bothered another,
To be daring again.
The worst part wasn’t the fear.
It was the confusion
At the gentle care,
the sometimes smile of welcoming
of their whole self.
Hope is cruel like that.
It keeps the door unlocked
for harm to walk back in.
By the time I realized what was happening,
I was smaller than my own reflection.
Not broken,
just dwindled.
Even with erosion itself:
Stone remembers its shape.
And somewhere beneath the dust of words so cold,
beneath the bruised silence
and the practiced flinch,
I am here.
Not loud yet.
Not steady yet.
But no longer
disappearing.
-Tara SimoneTM