Dream Life

                                      you are not a bad person but there were some things that broke you. and sometimes a broken spirit does things that even they, themselves do not quite understand. like hurt the ones they love the most. like build walls. like pretend that they do not care when inside they are quietly weeping. i know. you have seen the depths of some terrible places. things that took every ounce of peace from your body and sacrificed it at the altar of survival. but you have known soft  breezes too. the ones that whispered their silences into nape of your neck and told you not let go. there is still breath in your lungs and a fire that's burning. hold on to that glow. hold on.

                                                   You're going to realize it one day- that happiness was never about your job, or your degree, or being in  a relationship. Happiness was never about being like the others. One day, you're going to see it- that happiness was always about the discovery, the hope, the listening to your  heart and following it wherever it chose to go. Happiness was always about being kinder to yourself, it was always about embracing the person you were becoming. One day, you will understand. That happiness was always about learning how to live with yourself, that happiness was never  in the hands of other people. It was always about you. It was  always about you.

                                        I guess you could call me broken, says one. I'm still lonely, says another, but now I can name it with a song. In my poem, says another, I can forget I am forgotten. Now I understand being misunderstood, says another. And another says, in a bold, undeniable voice of power, I won't step down from myself again. And they are beautiful, beautiful, standing one by one at the mic where they have come forth at last from behind the curtain.