the-skyescraper

[the-skyescraper]

I started growing sunflowers at the beginning of quarantine, with the absolute foresight and belief that they would 1) not bloom and die immediately or 2) for sure not survive, if they happened to break soil.

And then, to my utter surprise, they sprouted. And got taller. They grew leaves. They out grew their pots. They bloomed.

And tonight I laid their crumbling remains to rest, which is such a poetic way to describe the ker-thumping dump they made falling out of their pot and onto the bed of weeds on the side of the house.

I wept, embarrassingly. It almost felt as if I was saying goodbye to my friends. And then, as I do, I delved into the bowels of my abandonment triggers and lamented that everything in my life dies. People, dreams, and flowers alike.

But, in the weeping, I had a new thought.

While everything dies, that doesn’t negate the purpose in its living. It is not always “abandonment.” It is not always intended to result in a gut-wrenching farewell. For my sunflowers, it was a quiet acknowledgment of a job well done and a graceful exit (and again, not graceful in execution, only in theory). And while people have said this in condescension to me as a consultation, tonight it finally traveled from my head to my heart.  

There have been things in my life that have been nurtured, bloomed, and died, leaving my focus on the shriveled remnants, forsaking the purpose of their presence in my life.

People and things aren’t necessarily intended to be permanent fixtures, and while the leaving or the passing is somber, I can change the narrative.

So my sunflowers didn’t die and leave me like everything else does. They grew, survived, thrived, brought me joy, gave me purpose in the wake of a global pandemic, and made me smile when I walked up to my front door each day.

And as I enter this new chapter of my life, it is ever so fitting that I bid them adieu.

[the-skyescraper]

Love me like a Now and Later.

The magnitude of this season of my life has began to occur to me. I get married in approximately 60 days. And my bridal shower is tomorrow. 

These are moments I will recollect when I use that new blender we love. These are the moments I’ll recall to our children. These are the memories we will hold in our hearts as we fondly reminisce on our love. 

And its painful and surreal to know I’ll remember who I was now. 

I’m not as “better” as I wanted to be tomorrow. I’m not as whole. I’m not encroaching upon the “end-zone” of whatever is this elusive healing journey. My body isn’t what I wanted her to be and I’ve only begun to care for her. There will be absences of which I never dreamed. There’s a global pandemic happening, and in its midst, I’m wedding planning and building a life. And, boy, am I still hurting. 

I’ll remember that too. And I don’t feel that person deserves celebration. 

Which is, admittedly, a major bummer. 

But in that same breath of thought tonight, on the exhale, I chose, instead of dwelling on the wrongness of circumstances and my incomplete being, I will focus on honoring the love that’s found me now. 

Here. 

He didn’t find and love me at my most well, so why would I deprive myself of the joy in that acceptance. He found me fit to love. And I am. I am worthy to be appreciated, treasured, and seen while under construction. To rebuke pleasure in my growth is to remove the purpose of the push through. 

So, tomorrow I will over-indulge in a bridal tea party, namely in the finger sandwiches and mimosa bar. I will celebrate finding my star with the friends and family that have and will love us on our trajectory. And I will enjoy. 

As my now deserves enjoyment as much as my then and my one day. 

[the-skyescraper]

Kirk Cameron marriage conference, 2052?

It’s been a major bummer to begin to unpack my unhealthy views of marriage. It’s extra yikes because until the last few years, I believed my beliefs to be fairly unscathed, all things considered. 

And then we (myself and myself in the car) discovered that I truly believe that marriage failure is inevitable it’s just a matter of time, and the slight off chance that you remain together it’s a constant uphill battle and is what christian couples describe as “hard” forever with twelve percent enjoyment and eighty-eight percent true hot garbage. You’ll *for sure* fall out of love with each other, slowly grow resentful, until you attend a marriage conference in your fifties and maybe rekindle a lil somethin’ somethin.’ You as their spice are their hole to fill, regardless of your say in the matter, so sex will never not be on the table, which is a huge bummer, but you signed up for it and you’re trapped because leaving is forbidden by the Lord unless he cheats on your or leaves, so fingers crossed one of those happens so you and your children can escape to a small two bedroom apartment and attend budget therapy. 

So it’s been a real treat. V healthy time in my mental health department. 

But I did notice a subtle shift I’ve forged through my brain recently. That instead of thinking of The Fiance as “stuck” with me or that I’ll be “stuck” in marriage, I thought of him as being “Committed” to me. And that slight connotation change made all the difference in that moment. Instead of plummeting down the rabbit trail of “stuck,” I was able to find joy and privilege in being committed to by someone. Chosen. And the safety in committing myself to that person in return. It’s beautiful and not a burden or entrapment. It’s like the Minnie Mouse blanket I had as a child (and will never get rid of) that I believed was the most efficient shield and buckler. It was warm, enveloping, protecting, safe, and a gift given out of love. And that’s what marriage is: a blanket draped around the shoulders of two people in love, each one promising to hold onto their side of the blanket, so the covering doesn’t slip.

Still scary, but less of an atomic disaster than I had originally internally conceded to. We may or may not need a mid-fifties marriage conference to save it all. Fingers crossed. 

[the-skyescraper]

Introducing...duh duh duuuhhh

I have recently been unpacking the fact that I have no identity. And not in the twenty-somethings, I’m-just-figuring-it-out way, but in the existential catastrophe that is comes in the wake of total mental and emotional annihilation. 

I realize I don’t have one permanent, self-elected title I would stamp upon myself. My job title is temporary and not one I esteem worthy to qualify as an identity buzz word. My relationships of all facets have proven to be unreliable. My social status, hobbies, appearance. None of it something I would share as a definitive identifier of my existence that I would chose for myself. 

There are some qualifiers that are in place that were not sought. One I’ve finally began to chew, but not completely ingest is “victim.” I have not allowed myself to embrace the title of victim. I hold myself above the word. It sounds frail. It sounds weak. And I am not able to be those things, even in the Exodus and healing. But embracing that identity means becoming soft, providing grace against the callouses that hold me accountable for coerced actions and forced travesty. So I’m learning to bear the title. 

(This post isn’t meant to be as somber as it’s been). But apart from the uncertain and unwilling, I have found a badge to bear. 

And it is Wife. In seven months I will have a new name. A new title (hello tax break). A new room mate. A new person to share a bathroom with. A new person to talk about how to properly hang up a towel after you’re done with it and not just leave it on the bed in a soggy heap until you need it next. 

In seven months I will have a Husband. And I will have the honor to be named his Wife. I cherish that that will be the first of many titles and honors I achieve, uncover, and establish. 

I just thought that was neat.  

[the-skyescraper]

It’s just a lot.

I’ve been through a lot. 

That feels a very mild statement, in the face of the cosmic weight that sentence holds. And I don’t say that to be hyperbolic. I don’t say that to exaggerate, be dramatic, or to romanticize my experience. 

What I’ve been through is horrific. It is traumatic. It is, in short, a lot. 

And now I’m here, on this late December, windy night, downtown, in my apartment, surrounded by the life that I’ve built and the pieces I’ve managed to scrape together, and it all just feels distant. Surreal. 

I don’t feel like a person tonight. I feel like an existential husk. Then doesn’t feel real and neither does now, and I’m unsure how to reconcile my existence and bridge the gap of my before and my unraveling after. 

All I know is that my body has started to shut down, and in my slowing, feelings are catching up. Hurt has caught up. Sadness has made its way here. Denial and depression are coming in hot, and I’m standing here doing my best to simply exist and allow them to enter the room. 

Because to deny them entry would create a back up at the entry of my soul, blocking healing from coming in the door after them. So, to quote Jenny Slate, I will exist as the Beast a la Beauty and the Beast, despondent as the proverbial townspeople make their way into my sanctuary, and I will let them come. 

And hopefully one day they’ll leave. And in their wake, maybe peace will arrive.

But for tonight, it’s a lot. 

[the-skyescraper]

I am okay.

It felt like time for a biannual, existential touch-base.

I am recognizing to take ownership of when I am being successful, and I would like to establish that I am doing well, thank you for asking. 

That by no means insinuates that I am consistently of sound mind or equal temperament. It doesn’t mean that I feel equipped, empowered, or mended, it just means that I am doing an exceedingly proficient job at feeling every moment that is the *inverse* of “well.” It means I am doing marvelously at acknowledging it, holding it, and stepping forward, whatever that may look like, for every situation or emotion that flits through my life. 

I am recognizing that I can be okay and also be sad. I can be okay and also be angry. That the circumstantial emotion does not overrule the baseline fact. And that resolute actuality is that I am okay. I am overwhelmed by an over abundance of expectations, but I am okay. I am single and alone, but I am okay. I grieve my dreams, but I am okay. I desire with every ounce of my soul every individual who has walked away from me, but I am okay. I am an appreciated friend (and I’m allowed to own that), and I am okay. I am a comforting force to those around me (and I’m allowed to own that) and I’m okay. I feel content and I am okay.

But that being said...I am truly okay. Shockingly okay. I have moments of “not okay,” but there is a river of calm I have found myself adrift in, that you would not expect after the demise of a nearly-four-year-long relationship, during the holiday season in which I grieve the loss of my family, going on my second week of teaching, after the last class I facilitated nearly destroyed me. 

And I’m allowed to be okay. Even when external voices and societal norms would dictate that I not be. I am allowed to be happy, even when I “shouldn’t be.” I am allowed to not be engulfed in despair, even when I “should be.” I am allowed to take steps forward, even when I’m being advised now is the time to sit and evaluate. 

So, I am okay. I’m not great, but I am okay. I’m not dreadful, I am truly, okay. And I’m proud to be okay. And I’m allowed to be proud of me. 

I am okay.

[the-skyescraper]

How audacious.

I am incredibly valiant. 

I am courageous to allow myself to be recurrently undone and to experience everything in the process of that unmaking. 

I am strong to chose to continue. Because I do recognize that, while it is of limited choice with poor supplemental options, options still exist, and are ofttimes, expansively more attractive. 

In the most vulnerable moments, I have been brave enough to allow myself the opportunity of weakness, because it is truly an opportunity. 

In my crumbling, I have been brave. 

In the rubble, brave. 

In the rebuilding, brave. 

In the wreckage of reconstruction, brave. 

I am just as brave to rebuild as I am to exist as shards. 

[the-skyescraper]

Not to be too personal, but back off my lady bits, k?

I am tired of my genitals being governed by the actions, implications, and instructions of others. 

To those who have governed by action: I am ruined. I hear the hopelessness in which I say that, and I do have a consummate apperception that I am redeemable. But that being said, reparation, by definition, indicates damage. And I will forevermore be “fixed.” Fixed is different than whole. And I have had the opportunity for wholeness stolen, and replaced. Interchanged with intrusive, traumatic thoughts and recollections, phantom pains caused by those who are now ghosts, and visceral desires that I now have to tame and contend with due to unculled exposure. And before you call to my recollection that God is the Redeemer and everything can be made back into beauty, please re-read the above.

To those who have governed by implications and instructions: I get it. I am a sacred vessel of righteousness, purity, and all that is holy, but that being said, I have received quite the conflicting message. Am I to set myself apart, protect my heart and my virtue, only to bless it upon he who pledges to do life with me? Or am I to have my innocence torn from my being and scattered upon those who will pay my dad a few dollars, and then grow to be a distrusting adult with crippling intimacy quandaries and an addiction caused by years of sexual expectation? Because the latter is the reality, and the former is a dream that I will never be privy to, in execution. So instead of shaming and condemning me for my “struggles,” my “impurity,” and my sexually sordid history, if you could understand that I’m living in a bit of a grey area, that would be ever so accommodating.  

Everyone just leave my vagina alone...? 

Because if you touch me, please know that I am weighing every flicker of your eyes, counting every breath, and conscious of every muscle twine that may taut. And I internalize and establish my value based off of these calculations, so dear God, be kind. Be gentle. Be patient. Because boy, oh boy, am I just a bundle of self-depreciating, sexual conundrums. 

I am accustomed to being an item and not a participant. So give me just a second to collect myself.

[the-skyescraper]

Don’t cajole me to comfort.

Please, let me be broken. 

As a collective whole, I have found it alarming how ill-equipped we are, as a generality, to address the undone. To stand alongside those who are shattered, grieving, and living without. In a society of such discord, offense, and tragedy, you’d think that these soft-skills would begin to evolve in our psyche due to necessity, but that is an apparent oversight in human development. So most just muddle through, and do what they think is best when dealing with a sad person. And in their quelling efforts, there is often more damage than reparation. 

We so often feel the innate desire to placate the hurting. To fill the space between their sobs with sweet nothings and unsubstantiated hope. With baseless “understanding” and attempts at circumstantial comparison. Which brings me to expound on one of my primary grievances:

*If you say you understand (directly or by means of comparison), you are, in fact, a piece of sh*t.*

I say that unabashedly, without the slightest peck of apology. Your individual experience is not comparable. Your pain is not universal. Your subjective relativity has no place in the circumstances of another’s hurt.

Let their hurt stand alone. Let their experience speak in the language it needs to, without your attempts at translation or appropriation. 

*deep breath*

Secondly, I find a common solution employed is to simply hush the experience of others. We white wash the darkness with “you’ll make it through”s and “not in Your strength, but in God’s,” (which is a whole other post in and of itself).

It discredits, undervalues, and nullifies their experience, even when said with the brightest of intentions.

So let me say this:

I’m entitled to my brokenness, so let me feel broken. I am allowed to be angry, so please let me indulge my rage. I have a right to my grief, so please let me wail. 

I do not need cajoled to comfort or praised into peace. I need acknowledgment. I need validation. I do not need understanding, but an appreciation for doing a good enough job at crying and being a human. Because being a human is hard, and I’m doing a d*mn good job at pretending to be one. 

So please don’t toss out an it will be okay, it heals in time, a you’ll make it through. Please save that for your cousin’s Facebook post about her divorce, which she shouldn’t be sharing on social media anyway. 

Your silence is a gift, your existence and consistency is a treasure, and if you can toss in a “wow, that’s bullshit, I’m so sorry to see you going through this, what do you need from me,” even better. 

I know you love me. You see me hurting, and that in turn makes you hurt. So please know that your eyes say all the words that I need to hear, and that whatever you’re about to say is going to be like a grill tarp in a hurricane: laughable in the face of the onslaught. Please exist. Please nod. If you need, please emote. But please don’t speak. I have enough words happening in my brain, and yours will be like whispers at an arena concert. 

Just loving me through my process in action and not word would be lovely, thanks. 

[the-skyescraper]

Can’t be a sailboat, have to be a submarine.

Nothing can ever simply happen without purpose in my life. I don’t know if this is a mindset I have acquired due to my history, if it is merely a personality quirk, or if it is due, in part, to the nature of my biblical nurture. 

If I am experiencing *something* it isn’t allowed to be for the sake of simple experience, but must be of greater intention. So the ideology of flying across the world, only to come home unchanged is abominable. Irresponsible. I need to spelunk to the depths, because to do anything and it return as simple novelty is unpardonable. What I do must require acumen. Contemplation. Introspection. The antonymous is indicative of an idle spirit, stagnancy in heart and mind. 

And while I know this mindset to be toxic, I can’t say I know it to be untrue. I have found purpose and substance in all. Not necessarily justifiable, in the face of particular circumstance, but present nonetheless. But I can say: I am exhausted. And I crave the trust and allowance to relinquish my expectations and quest for significance, in everything. 

A day can, in fact, just be a day, and that day will still have furthered my life. If not in quality, than at the very least, on the spectrum of time. It is taxing to esteem each moment to a benchmark and meet every happenstance with expectation. 

So today, I will lie here and do nothing. I will allow myself to exist without purpose for a moment. To simply breathe in this breezy, light-green room, in Holland, and not fill my time with endless activities, out of situational obligation. I will wear a baggy t-shirt and watch The Office. 

And it will be difficult. But I aspire to find peace in the idle. 

Even when my brain, heart, and soul tell me that’s disgusting. 

They can shove it.

[the-skyescraper]

Being human & hopeful are weaknesses I can not incur and are therefore flaws I have abolished. But as I am healing & aging, I am discovering these follies to be a necessity for fruitful existence, which seems like a reckless and dangerous privilege I pray I can afford.

Present-day Skye, 12:14am. 

[the-skyescraper]

Here, is this yours? The blame? Yeah.

It is truly baffling how people are so swift to jump out of the way of blame. At the first sign of altercation requiring accountability, we duck for cover, avert our gaze, and check the room for marked exit doors. It appears to be a tennis match, in which two gifted athletes are swatting away circumstantial possessorship with rackets crafted with childhood plights, broken hearts, and unfortunate situations, with which they’ve contended.

But, here’s the skinny.

I know, that you know, that I know I messed up, so I am lost on why I would invest my time in convincing you otherwise. I find relationships and the feelings of others to be of more value than my comfort, my pride, and my imagined dignity. Even when I have acted out of my own hurt.

I have come to the, unfortunately rare, conclusion that “hurt” is not a pardon for my actions. If I looked at my hand of life-dealt cards, I could find a plethora that would entitle me to the utmost noxious behavior of my choosing; however, in doing so, I would be perpetuating a cycle of suffering, therefore, making a home in my hurt. And I see no purpose in living there. Nor do I see a purpose in subletting it to someone I esteem greater than my situational sewage. 

I am entitled to my hurt, but I am not entitled to consequence-less behavior on its behalf. No quantity nor quality of my past or present reserves the right to dictate my decorum. 

So, as a PSA to those who may take the time to honor my words: blame isn’t a bad word. It has to fall somewhere. So instead of letting it land, catch it. Hold it. Acknowledge it. Own it. Because if you cherish the one who cast it, you will put down the cards in your hand to hold the heart they have chosen to share with you. Because you can’t hold onto their words if your fingers are busy pointing at anything else but the person to whom they belong. 

I hope others discover as I have, that the individual is greater than your imagined spotlessness and ownership is the stepping stone to reconciliation and relationship. 

Stop bleeping out bl*me.

[the-skyescraper]

Garbage grace.

I do not very well absolve my missteps. 

As a proclaimed and assigned perfectionist, I esteem myself upon achievement, accolades, and excellence. To err is human, and I am distant from my humanity. 

So in my erroneous behavior, my shortcomings, I am brought toe-to-toe with the construction zone of my heart I’ve been so desperate to detour. My imperfection sheds light to the broken person I am underneath and I refuse to be broken (I am an overlapping enigma of ownership and denial of folly). 

My form is at times, ashamedly, sloppy, but the recovery is worse. Once I have reached the point of flaw, I lay on the earth and wallow in the blunders. I am overwhelmed by my faults, and now every transgression my perfection has draped over, as a tapestry of surety, is exposed. And I feel it. I look the human I am in the eye and acknowledge her existence. 

And I am not a fan of her. 

To remedy the circumstance, I compensate by being the best, when I am in fact the worst. 

But I am learning: I am allowed to be the worst. I am allowed to be a person. The human race, in and of itself, is a road with a constant lane closures and overnight crews attempting to correct the bumps, gnarls, twists, and turns that mar the pavement of our path. 

Grace is not something earned by my bewildering ability to be the best. And thank God. Grace is something doled out to me, because I am simply delighted in. Because I am a freshly birthed giraffe trying to salsa dance, and it’s a bit of a disaster, and that’s okay. 

I am, can not stress this enough, garbage at grace. But He is not. And I am grateful for filthy forgiveness. 

[the-skyescraper]

Just out here, being a person.

I have these brief moments where I remember I’m a person.

Moments in which I feel life. I feel what it’s like to be a 23-year-old girl, beyond it all. I sat on the floor in the shower the other day and vividly felt the water pour over me. And all of my pieces, the fragments of my mind and soul, were existentially aware. That it’s over. I survived. 

I survived.

There are times where that doesn’t occur to me. And I have always abhorred the term “survivor.” It felt synonymous to me wearing the label of “Victim,” but today, I will choose to call myself a survivor. 

The broken Little Skye’s in the background of it all are so wedged and rooted in the pain and actuality of their own reality that I, most commonly, don’t live in the realization that today is June 1st, 2019 and I’m here.

They are gone.  He is gone. And I am here. 

They don’t know where I live. I have my own car. My own place. My own job. My own cat. My own money. My own male counterpart. My own life.

I have things they will never be able to touch.

And while that doesn’t eradicate the grief I have for the things they have touched, it helps bring me back.

That despite the atrocities, today I am here.

Today my mind is present. Today I walked to a coffee shop, am writing this on my own laptop, drinking my own oat milk latte (gross), and being a human.

Which is significantly more difficult than advertised.

Being a person is a distant responsibility I don’t often feel. It’s just something that happens to me. But today, right now it’s a conscious choice.

I don’t really remember walking out of my apartment. I remember the action, I don’t remember the feelings. It was an absent-minded, autopilot task. And it wasn’t until I was about a block away where it was like… “Sh*t...we really out here right now.” Which is so indicative of my life. 

Moments of complete absence, and then a Mac-Truck-running-over-my-body moment of

*breath* I’m alive *breath* I’m a human *breath* and we really be out here ri’now.

I aspire to have more days like today. Where I am here.

I’m here.

[the-skyescraper]

Viceroy real estate.

I learned not to make a home in the tangible, to not nest in actuality; but to stand resolute on my foundation of humans that could never, would never hurt me. To have faith in the life being built for me by a very well-known carpenter. 

And in that, the house I built, was constructed upon the sand of human folly and washed away. I stand, now, holding the driftwood of what was once my beautiful, but broken, home; standing corrected, taught that homes are for the hopeful. I have become a vagrant. I am not tethered nor established. I am an orphan in a bed that is not my own; an emotional and psychological transient, seeking asylum. 

And then I made my home in him. 

Because I saw You in him. I allowed myself to root in the familiarity of Your voice, Your words, and Your nature. I felt Your love in him. I felt Your delight and unobstructed acceptance. He was the viceroy I fell for, and now it tastes bitter. 

Because he’s not You. His arms are not all reaching and encompassing. His compassion is limited and his wisdom is pithy and pales in comparison to the wealth of your knowledge. He does not have the ability to quell my chaos, nor eradicate the infestation of my heart. But I have clung, again, to those I believed could never, would never hurt me, in an effort to have something tangible to call my own. Because he is here and You are, at times, aloof, unclear, and not secure.

So, knowing you are the carpenter, the builder of all things new, please rebuild my home. I have made futile attempts, and the outcome? Abominable. I surrender the blueprints I have crafted, of my own accord, and minimal mindset. May you use the driftwood as the cornerstones of the new construction. I will leave the real estate business to You, being equipped to establish my life upon a much firmer foundation than him. 

I’m ready for my forever home. 

[the-skyescraper]

Make me a bison, circa 1770.

“Nothing is wasted/you work all things for good...you are loving/you are wise/there is nothing in my life/you can not revive.”

I picture the Native American’s approach to hunting. They utilized every ounce of their harvest; including the pieces deemed useless, at first blush. They fashioned every iota of their kill to accommodate the needs of many, leaving nothing to the wayside to rot.

And I beg that the same be done with my life. 

There will never be a commensurable quantity of justification for what has happened. I am no longer seeking recompense, but the utility of travesty. That in the shattered and tattered, the shards can be used as tools. The strands can be used as rope. The driftwood can be used as weight-bearing beams. That the cries of my broken heart can be the whisper heard by another that says:

You’re not alone in this. 

I take heart in the dream that my dried meadow will one day bear blooms. Like mountain mallow after a wildfire, I hope my healing takes root in the flames. That after the dust settles, the ash is brushed away, that the pink petals of what remains sprout above the debris.  

Because I refuse to acknowledge an existence in which my adversity is costly and desultory. I refuse to entertain the idea that I am overcoming these blights simply for the sake of bragging rights and continued permanence in this life. 

I will forevermore ask that my pieces be a mosaic, my hurt be a beacon, and my pain create the solution to the plights of another. 

May nothing be wasted, may all things be used for good. 

[the-skyescraper]

This is a stupid parade.

God didn’t make it happen. I get that. I have full theological understanding of the concept of free will and independence from God. The Father will only act within the confines and boundary lines crafted by the human will, because He desires relationship not dictatorship with His creation. 

I’m mopping up what you’re spilling. I got it. Makes “sense.”

God didn’t make it happen, but he absolutely did nothing to stop it. And that’s where my brain stops calculating. I understand that I am seeing but a snippet in time, and this is one float in a vast parade, of which I have limited knowledge. But if the catastrophic trauma I have undergone is but a blip on his radar, and feeds into something larger, I believe it is fair to question He who is orchestrating this whole shenanigan. 

I fully expect for there to be a day and time in the unforeseen future where I may swallow these words of contempt. A day might come where the pieces snap into place, and I sheepishly apologize to The Father for my human folly and belligerent anger. 

There may be a day of redemption, but I truly can’t imagine what magnificent redemption would equate to the horrors I’ve had to sleep with. The tragedy I’ve had to journey through, and the losses I’ve had to mourn. 

And all I ask is for Him to make it make sense. In all of this, I believe it only just for you to shed light on your intentions with my life. Because if this has been for anything less than exponential greatness, I don’t want it. 

If I have gone through *THIS* for you to redeem it in that I refuse to continue to fight. In my, admittedly selfish, human mind, I don’t care if I went through all of this to reach the *one.* Because unless that ONE person is going to create a transcontinental shift in the human paradigm, it absolutely does not balance the brokenness from which I am now crafted. 

Make me a Phoenix or nothing at all. 

Because right now I’m burning, and You’re watching, telling me that one day I won’t dissipate into ashes, and I just don’t believe that. So I get that you didn’t set me on fire, but please put me out.