Wilted

I left and ran away.

 I looked around at my life and took stock and it hurt and was upsetting and I was scared to death and I ran.

 I ran away from what I really wanted, I stopped fighting and stopped pushing forward.

 I allowed my fear to consume me and I ran.

I ran far

and I ran into the arms of a man that took my ability to love and my desire to nurture and darkened it. Turned it into this sad pathetic writhing thing that was all consuming.

 Like a sad flower that has lost all of its petals, been trampled and stampeded on, I was left.

 More broken than when I ran in the first place.

More confused and hurt and lost and scared.

 And then with a baby step I tried to point my stem back towards the sky. Tried to allow just a small ray of light to strengthen my deteriorated self, back into something I recognized.

 And yet I then found a man. And he seemed healthy and stable and made me smile and my twisted brain that had run to and from the fears and desires of love chose him.

But my stem was not yet strong,

and I once again allowed his feet to trample me. Shake my reserve in myself and I was weak. Frail. My stem, my backbone not remembering how to bow. How to be erect

Not remembering how I at some point in the distant past was fearless.

And now another petal missing, all I want is to go back.

To go back to my life that I had before fear and angst and hurt pushed me into the cold wet earth, my backbone forgetting how to bow.

 I want to go back and relive it all and cherish it. And remember.

Remember how my bones were strong and remember how my backbone bowed and remember how I spoke. Remember my voice and my appearance.

But I am now twisted and broken and petal less. My stem is broken and no rays touch me, pulling me skyward.

So I sit dreaming of the past. Of what was once my life and my appearance, remembering and longing and aching and not being able to change any of it.

But the memories are intoxicating.

 The pull me, they make me feel.

For a split second I remember what my bones felt like when they were hard and then just as quickly it fades. But the more I remember I loop the memories together, 30 seconds 1 minute 3 minutes, I feel strong, my backbone bows.

And I feel intoxicated by myself.

 Feel my hands unclench, feel my chest rise and fall towards the sky rather than cowering  and hiding itself chained and barred and scared. But it fades

and the feeling of loss is overwhelming.

The feeling of losing people you love, the feeling of losing the love of yourself is overwhelming and I catch my breath. I shrink back into the earth.

Embarrassed by how brilliant my petals once were only to be wilted and brown with neglect. And I am crushed

and stuck and paralyzed and I can’t move any closer to earth because I can still feel the strength in my bones fading

and I can’t move skyward because my backbone is no longer bowed.

 So I stay suspended just resting on the cold earthen covering.

And then another memory lifts me skyward and maybe just maybe this time I will get enough rays to stay upright and strong but no. not in this meadow,

and a foot tramples on me.

My stem, my backbone cannot bow. So I just exist.

Resting in suspension between these two lives. Tormented by both past and present.

My petals wilted brown and creased.