Some stuff I wrote last night.

Nothing's been edited. I'm afraid that if I go back over it, I'll wuss out and leave it in its hand-written form. So here's what I wrote, straight from my brain to the page in the purest way.

There are times when I still glimpse you out of the corner of my eye. I feel as though there should be a fleeting happiness, a skipping heart, a flushed face. But what springs upon me is fear. I am afraid that one look, one moment, will make me fall again. I am afraid to hurt. To cry. To reopen wounds that I have haphazardly tied shut with strings of self-pity and insecurity. Most of all, I am frightened by your ability to make me write words like these, even after so much time has passed us by.

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Softly, trembling, her fingers trace the outline of her self-portrait.
Tears of pride fall and mix with those that have come before--of sadness, love, fear, anger, desperation, fatigue, regret--
Smudging the outline she had so carefully crafted for herself so many years ago.
Her eyes rest on that head, housing
That ever-questioning, exploring mind.
Tapping the page knowingly, she smiles,
Seeing the journey stretched out behind her, the echoes of past moments not so easily forgotten.
There. There are the hands that have caressed, calmed, collided, and carried.
The legs that have run, rushed, and reached.
Her gaze moves to the heart, so often edited and erased.
She peels back the layers she has glued and taped over it,
Feeling the pain of seeing all of her past mistakes laid out tangibly before her.
Blindly, fearfully even, she reaches for the scissors,
Cuts out that heart, cuts away the rest,
Because the feelings matter more than the body parts she used to create them.
She closes her hand around that tiny heart,
Placing it up against her own,
The real life,
Beating version.
She will be okay. She knows that now.