Braving the storm

The "naive ones" confront the storm. They brace themselves for its dark clouds and feel the sting of its first drops in luck. The gust of wind that pushes against them without sight of an ending to ominous clouds of abuse, the lack of no one to hold onto as they endure, is the survival of the soul battling the cage that usurps its free spirit.

Because they dared to challenge it.

It is the struggle of one escaping the vacuum of principles society pressured them to enter. And in their survival, they are aware that they have left society's novelties in living. They become elastic almost, flipping between obstacles almost naturally. Survival makes a gymnast out of the human being. 

But in braving the storm and pursuing it out of curiosity, in taking the risks, in following such things as faith or love or even obsession, you become one of the few who can describe the feeling that so many fear: rebellion against one's presumed role. Suddenly you are doing the opposite of what most people do, and that scares them. 

To tell those generations following you to heed the warnings, to stay clear of the storm as it approaches, to not be ashamed of the refuge they have but to question it, that becomes your obligation as a survivor. 

You tell them of how it felt to almost die. 

To watch yourself decay. 

To become a stranger to your past.

To hear everyone whisper your name in pity.

They ask why there are bags under your eyes. Why you have not eaten. They say take care of yourself.

But how can self preservation continue when the elements rip apart at your character? 

It was not worth it to challenge what was not in my control. But for the interest of those women around me, of those girls who question the sky because no one seems to be listening, what I endured is for you--not out of self righteousness, but that is one of the costs of risk taking. You become something to study.

I volunteer myself as the textbook example to analyze. Or rather, the storm volunteered me. I accept out of respect for the game we played together. 

It is not an experience to covet, and of course no one will know the way it felt when tears filled the gutters of something void of structure. It is an experience from which we can learn. 

It made a lesson and I survived, and while I am not proud of it, I am certain that I came out as myself.

Not the bitter, lonely, soul. Not the one lost in pools of remorse. Not the artificial soul who becomes high on anything hazardous. But one who refuses to trust the landscape painted in bright colors, framed on a wall but dripping in painted forgery. To be called beautiful, when it is actually dangerous to distract from the real meaning of life.

I do not marvel at harm and call it art. 

This is my life.This is self created and yet shared by the world I was born to. Remolded. Something once whole, fragmented, and now being pieced back together.

I did not become the storm. But I became my own.