Saturday, February 24, 2018

VI


Six years ago today, I had two brain surgeries.
Six years of surviving ever since.

Surviving is beyond hard. 
It can be loud and chaotic, 
a deafening swirl sucking you in 
like Dorothy traveling via tornado.
It can be silent and crippling
a choke drowning sensation 
like a scream muffled with violent intent.

Ironically, surviving often prevents
any real chance to move forward,
because you find yourself
so tangled and trapped in the past.

You find you relive it,
over and over,
being crushed by the weight of the memory,
second guessing the choices
you had to make merely to survive.
Doubting yourself from deep within.

Surviving is forever ongoing
and is rarely pretty.
It has an honest weight 
which you alone have to carry,
and the task of dragging a mountain that large
takes its toll,
inch by inch and day by day.
One labored breath at a time.

Six years has been harder to survive,
then the brain surgeries themselves were.

Some days the silence wins.
Some days the loud overwhelms.
Some days you softly remember who you were,
and clumsily find who you are now.

Try to remind yourself
Bravery is not always made true 
in the grand gestures
but often lives quietly in
the smallest of inhales.

I am trying to remember that today,
one single breath at a time.