I have no idea what it is
Vulnerability
A human mystery
Something the world says
I'm supposed to have
To be this thing
Called a good person
Somehow it's mixed
With this thing
Called arrogance
I've been told
I have none of the first
And too much of the second
But the idea that
An arrogant woman
Is telling me
I lack it
Seems…
Hypocritical
At the least
And hysterical
At best.
So I ask the next person
And he says it's
When you are afraid
And I ask the next
And she says it's
When you can be hurt
And I still have no idea
What it may be
It is still a mystery
Then later that day
I lay naked on a table
And a therapist works
At tight and constrained
Muscles attached to my heart
My breastplate
And water leaks
from my eyes
and I have no conscious
idea why.
“Who hurt you?”
she whispers.
‘I don't know.'
Honestly I don't
Then she adds
The hot rocks
To my chest and the heat
Penetrates my soul
In a way I cannot fathom
I want her hands
on the inside of my chest
There is no defense against it
And some small child inside me
Begins to wail
A sound of pain
A chill of release…
“Who hurt you so badly?
Don't you know?” she whispers
with deep sympathy and compassion…
From below my voice
From below my breastbone
From beneath my pain
A refrain
‘Get her out'
“Get her out”
‘I want her out'
“I want her out”
Something still holds
Back the pain
From release
From the right
The shaman woman
Whispers in my ear
To my soul
“Something needs to happen
to let this go
what is it?”
There is something gone
The edit button
Has been erased
And I know
That everything is on the line
Right here
Right now
Honesty is essential
As breathing is to life
A howl rips forth
In raspy abandon
With a volume
That scares me
“I forgive me
I forgive her.
I forgive me
I forgive her.”
The cork is blown off
And out…
I am naked
On a table
In more ways
Than one…
I don't want to be alone
And my beloved comes
And she holds my hand while
I scream and cry.
With each layer
As it is burned out of my heart
Through volcanic rocks
And endless tears
Like the sea
There are depths to me
I never fathomed.
I won't bore you
With the details
Because I lay there
Crying for hours
The pains of my soul
I never had time enough
To honor…
Until we reached the core
Where I uttered out loud
The thing I thought
About myself
The heart of the
Shadow self
“I don't want to be here
I don't want to be in this
Broken body
I didn't want to come back
From the light.”
I don't want to be here
I want to be in the light
I don't want to be here
In the pain…
The only thing
That keeps me here
Is that if I leave
I will hurt you
And it's the only thing that keeps me here.”
My beloved looks down
At me as she hold my hands
Terrified of my words
And the raw timber
Of my voice…
She is crying with me
For me.
The guide through
The forest of my pain
The issuer of heat
Light, and love
Then whispers to me
And my beloved,
“Remember when you asked
about what vulnerability was?”
