FORGED IN FIRE

I learned to love out of fear–

the fear of not being loved,

of being unwanted,

Unworthy, undeserving. 

Hate was what I discovered

when those fears became true;

when love became a prize to be earned,

or a mirror held to someone else’s virtue.

I learned to walk out of cowardice—

to apologise for the space I occupied,

afraid that my existence might disgrace

those who only knew how to crawl.

Pride was what I discovered

when I tried to hide that fear,

trusting it would eventually subside

like every other unwelcome feeling.

I learned to speak through obedience—

only when I was allowed,

only to entertain the silence others avoided,

with whatever they wished to hear.

Insolence was what I discovered

when I spoke out of turn,

to voice what no one wanted to hear,

when I refused the truth they had chosen for me.

What others fled from, I learned to embrace—

Not always out of courage,

not always out of necessity 

but because there was nowhere left to run but inward.

I have been shattered,

broken into a thousand tiny pieces,

each one carrying within it

a fragment of a denied soul.

The only way to ease the split it seemed

Was to either give into raging madness 

Or drown in Lethe’s tears

And let the oblivion erase the pain.

But just like Osiris,

disassembled and gathered again

by the loving hands of Isis,

I was returned to myself.

Piece by piece, I found what remained

beneath the names they buried me in,

beneath the wounds they left,

beneath everything they taught not to be.

Life begins when fear releases its grip—

when the heart no longer mistakes survival for love,

when, despite its burdens and its flaws,

it chooses, still, to carry on.

Fear ends where love begins—

in unity, in acceptance,

in facing the ugliest parts of ourselves

and welcoming them with open arms.

Seperation is the true illusion.

An intricately woven lie.

We may stretch and push the limits outward,

but never truly sever from the One.