A Beautiful Undoing

They established in me a firm, corrupt foundation. Concrete slabs interspersed with rebar, thick walls layered brick by brick laid with weeping mortar, I was an impenetrable fortress hiding in their hedge of protection. When the rain fell, it rolled off my feathered back without consideration. I was theirs to take and theirs to keep. My joy, my gifts, my spirit, was theirs to control, theirs to manipulate. Every personal victory of mine was repossessed as theirs. My achievements belonged to them. And my failures were mine alone to bear. Everything I am is in spite of them. And yet, everything I am, they claimed to be fruits of their labor.

And after all this time, I am no man's wine.

When I was younger, my rebellion was natural and unbridled. I would scream ferociously and dance when I felt and laughed when I desired. I would hatch ingenious six-year-old plots to get away from forces that sought to control me. That strong will was beaten out of me and I became obscenely submissive to the dogma and indoctrination I was subjected to.

My foundation was dismantled bit by bit, crack by lighting bolt crack, and when the earth beneath me quaked, I sank deep beneath the depths of my home, deeper than my feet could ever wander, and I finally knew what part of me had always known.

Neither the sledgehammer, nor the twister, or the wrecking ball-- nothing would crumble me like the rivers of your love would. I would find myself suffering your cruel intentions until I melted in your embrace and evaporated in the vibrato of your voice.

In falling for you, I climbed up from the pits of them. In falling, in laughter, in finding you, in my restoration and reconstruction, I would find myself. In my heart, a work began in me that would take years to finish and years to come. The re-wiring of my brain, the re-forging of my synapses, the reformation of my indoctrination---

a beautiful undoing.