Souls

I am a solemn individual,

filled with horrible memories that were made to bend, not to build.

I still persist, like a horrible ache in your back you try to fix.

I am made of scar tissue and blood. Blood spilled from my own flesh, covered with thin bands of reminders of those moments. I don't think there is an inch of my forearms unmarred, and I can see the visible indents on my thigh if it gets hot enough.

Still, I persist. In this body that once housed a little girl ever so loved, and a teenager ever so traumatized and darkened in her soul.

I remain every bit them both, whilst making room for who I am now. They like to make their appearances, and while it is exhausting housing so many beings, I appreciate their vitality.

Should I not have that child within me I would not find such love within a body of water, nor how the sun reflects on its bumps. I doubt id care so much for my family in the way I do now, pouring every hour and breath I have into each gift given for the holidays.

Should I not have my teen, I imagine id be very dull. I wouldn't be so resilient, I wouldn't be so sure-footed. I would not have saved as many lives as I did knowing those struggling as well as myself at an early age.

But I house those souls, too- the ones in the in-between. My preteen self, my early twenties that feel much more like something else rather than adulthood.

I house them, as they are my creativity. I speak to you now through that unsure middle plane of being twenty-two, longing to be an author and yet unsure. Struck between a broke addiction or complete loneliness.

I am a house of memories. A mind that builds and bends. And I love each inhabitant, and cherish their souls so long forgotten or marred by times cruel freezer; forever holding them within the gaze of those who did not see her. Did not see me.