It starts with
My internal landscape
My willingness to be well
Quietly erasing
The deleterious effects
Of my childhood
Understanding that
My compromised state
Was not mine
And was not me
That I was
Who I am today
Whom I have become
Through my focused and intensive process
Of cleansing purifying transforming
And so there is nobody
I need to rescue
She was not she
She was not I
By flowing ahead
Without looking back
I am not abandoning her
To the brutality and totality
Of his violence
I was never there
To begin with
And so
I no longer need
To ingest and embody
The wounds the damage
From the violence
In particular
When doing so
Would compromise and cripple
My ability
To be full whole today
And set me back
From spreading the full span
Of my wings
And taking flight
©2017 by Loolwa Khazzoom. All rights reserved. No portion of this article may be copied without author’s permission.
