I couldn’t explain what it feels like to endure
I can only feel it.
The feeling of soft skin that is more vulnerable than I want to withstand.
The feeling of hot tears as a release to strangled breaths of grief.
The feeling of letting go and the cellular knowing of how much it can hurt.
*
Like the exhale, emptying.
Emptying stories that feel so real.
I am meant to be the oxen, made to be the one who can withstand.
I care not for this expectation.
Can I say no?
*
I do not wish to be an oxen.
I cannot bear the weight nor the presumptions.
*
Heavy.
The boxing match between knowledge and embodiment.
Tales are woven that will never give space for what the physiology is speaking.
We are not taught this language.
We are taught how to blame, how to be overwhelmed by our own distress.
We are taught to hoard rather than be generous.
Empathy is not compassion.
There is no evolution within a hierarchy of above and below.
*
Accepting change is an ice bath that must be settled into.
State of being that receives each vague moment until it becomes clear.
Surrender not by way of an arousal attempting to relinquish it’s grasp,
more of a gentle submission of allowing one’s breath and trusting all that may be possible.
*
Like the exhale, emptying.
Giving back all that was never mine to hold.
Forgiveness that the shield must still be near, for an organism is still made to protect herself.
Sensing more than telling as the truer discipline for internal change.
*Images by Jade Beall
