They say that the poem is a vessel for your Truth:

the story branded on your heart, boiled in your blood, and buried deep inside your bones - 

the raw, wild parts of you too often hidden behind fear or shame or pain or guilt or grief.

But the Truth can be daunting - 

a hideous, snarling creature capable of making even the most courageous turn their heads and run. 

Sometimes, the Truth is immersed so completely that we can pretend we don't even know its there.

We pretend for so long, and we start to forget.

So here is an ode to my Truth.

Here is a poem for all of the poems I'm too afraid to write,

for the mess of thoughts in my mind that will fizzle out unspoken,

for all of the feelings I'm too afraid to carve into words,

for the terror that holds me hostage in my own body, 

for the splintered soul within my rib cage:

I refuse to let fear reduce me to anything less than magic - 

to tarnish these two hands strong enough to carry the world,

this heart that never

ever

stops loving, 

this mind capable of the most remarkable miracles.

Do you hear me?

I will no longer be a slave to my fear.