Kiana

I keep going—opening up new doors, closing old ones, healing wounds, creating new ones, nursing fires, igniting new ones, and so on.

I started writing poetry again for the first time in two weeks. There are moments in my life that seem to call out from my heart and brain; they beg to be released into words and flow and rhyme, that is, poetry.

I started smoking again.

I started looking everyone intensely and sincerely in the eye, even the men at my workplace. This meant becoming acquainted with a boy whose eyes led my lungs to stifle for a night. He told me yesterday, “There’s something about your hair I can’t quite place,” and that “it’s beautiful” and he “likes it.” I smiled and thought of the boy who broke my heart a year ago, and of how he also used to comment on my hair or my shoes.

I know that I know better.

I am reeling, thinking of all the possibilities that would come my way if I open myself up to the world, but there’s a protective, motherly side to me that wants to protect myself from all the harm this may cause.

I know that I need this. I need to feel pain every once in a while to remind myself I am alive and incredibly human—bones, flesh, sweat, tears, blood. I know that I need to feel the crushing weight of being alone, and lonely, in order to remind myself of my capacity to attend to my own needs. I need bruises in my body, scratches on my neck, breaks in my nails, to remind myself of my limitations, and at the same time commend my spirit for remaining steadfast amid the destruction.

Destruction is rebirth. As I think of my greatness, I feel my hands tremble. ♦