Last night, I let myself mourn the loss of my childhood.
I let myself become that sad little girl again,
I let myself feel her loneliness,
And her emptiness,
And her confusion.
Last night, I allowed myself to remember what it felt like to be her.
I held my breath as I transformed into her memory,
The one I keep caged up in my mind’s dungeon,
And I felt what she felt,
And I remembered what it was like to be her.
Last night, I let myself mourn for my family.
I grieved the loss of my parent’s marriage.
I let myself long for a home that all four of us exist in.
I rolled over in bed and let my eyes fill with tears and my throat close.
I remembered what it was like to feel voiceless.
I allowed myself to feel the pain and anger of abandonment.
I felt small,
And I remembered what it was like to attack myself until I was withering away,
So that my body could match my soul.
Today, I allowed myself to forgive.
I let myself forgive the helpless child and the devastated girl.
My brain connects the dots and I forgive her for the things she did.
I relieve her of the burden of forcing my habits and carrying my addiction to self-loathing.
I forgive her for the way she treated my body,
The way she used her words to ridicule my reflection like a whip.
I let myself forgive that girl for enslaving me to feed her hunger for control,
For her obsessive perfectionism,
Because it wasn’t her fault.
It was never her fault.
Tonight,
In my endlessly exhausting battle with my own mind,
And my desperate grappling for control over control as I watch it almost slip through my fingers every day,
I remind myself to feel,
So I can understand that this was never my fault.
