pepi16072020

I would like to crack just a little, enough for my heart to have a bit more room, a bit more of a view, a bit more of a chance. I hear these words echoing in my head and I wonder if maybe that’s the reason for love. For love picks up the pieces, forgets the ugly faces, forgives the haunting words, turns the other cheek to gaze at its face in all its glory. That’s what we are told at least. Because sometimes even the most glorious gladiator finds an invincible champion as an opponent.

It’s called Self and has defeated all of us at some point. I read a story once in a Greek mythology book about man’s creation. Originally, we were created with four arms, four legs two heads, and two hearts but we were split in half because the gods deemed us too powerful. And so, in separation, we were forced to spend our lives searching endlessly for our missing piece. The other half. Nobody told us what happens when you miss a whole. Nobody gives us the least bit of a hint about how to face the loss that comes from within.

Probably due to the fact that very few acknowledge, or realize such loss. Even when they do it is still hard -so as not to say impossible- to handle the ” I don’t know who I am” part of it all. I hear the voices in my head, and outside, but I don’t know who’s talking anymore. I recognize the face but not its existence. I look at it in the mirror but I don’t see it. In the mirror where I see my only enemy. I think back to all the times you watched me break and wondered if maybe being with me has become excessively hard work. Though I feel cynical to just for the thought alone; I know what it’s like to carry the things begging you to fall apart. I know what it’s like to want to break rather than bend.

I deal with those things every day – as you are dealing with me. That’s how I know I keep on coming back to you each time — this exile pushes me beyond my limits. It’s me against me. It’s us in favor of us when I toss and turn in the dark unable to fall asleep until you whisper a lullaby on my pillow. The funny thing about darkness, it’s defeated by the simplest shimmer of light. In this light I feel you I hear you sleeping and I am reminded that love doesn’t stop it simply beats. It’s beats defeated, bruised, battered, and unrecognizable to itself.

It beats when it wants to give up sometimes. It beats when I am an accumulation of behaviors I never wanted for myself. It beats when I think that, aside from ourselves, faces and voices, we have nothing – though you always got me somehow.

So, beat for me, with a heart made of promise and intent on being mine, when I’m unable to be my own. When I falter, stumble quietly between each step. I guess because I’ve learned that the more you make a sound the worse it all feels. And sometimes I wish I could let in my mind or open my body to let you feel. Feel the way my entity synchronizes with the tone of your voice and I am more than okay.

You made me a promise; that all those sleepless nights will have been worth it one day. To watch closely for that important lesson this self- hurting is giving me.

Until I realize life is way too short to spend another day at war with myself.

Author: Pepi Naki

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