When my Source of Love went Sour

With a fire in my soft bellied seven year old body

I was freely about to overflow.

A brilliant light, brimming source of love

To myself and to all

All I touched, all I was and all

I could be. Could do. Could see

Full of fullness. I delighted in everything
I did not need simply because I did not need anything from anyone at all

Oh, how my own soul was enough to sing

Filling the sound of the secluded small world that was mine

That was enough. That was enough

The original source was enamoured with me then

My mother, my world

She could hold me and I could hold her up

I could breathe in the knowing that she loved me more than anything

I could feel it wavering inside like a second heartbeat, sure and steady.

Her own heart, she released and kept pulsing in my small body when we became separate

as a gift, as a sentencing.

A promise that I must keep her alive by returning this love

So she can keep me fed and full

freely about to overflow-

With an unconditional love that has become trivial with time.

That has become misplaced, misused, misinterpreted-

an undeniable effort, an afterthought

To fit into the shape my body has grown into - a reflection of her own body that she despises,

of a woman she refuses

To fit into the space I take up, a mess in her mind and a mess in her home

To adapt to the person grown upon

The stainless girl, existing to please

Existing for peace

That ceases to stand in my place

That she misses more

Than the daughter she sees.

The daughter that must look for love elsewhere

Seeking the spoiled attention from salty, staring men

Before she knew why, before she knew better

The girl that thought admiration from the outside, that endless hungry wanting to be wanted

Searched for in every gaze, word and touch that came near

would end in a love she knew and needed more

Pouring out from the inside- like it did before

It did not. It did not.

Whilst the pool of love between my forlorn loving parents was being poisoned

I picked at boys who wrote poetry and plucked guitars

Pretending a song or a sonnet could replace the childhood love that got put away too soon-

with the dusty dolls , discarded, undone
sat with the forgotten soft toys, wilting, worthless

suffocated when slept with, they lost their stuffing, their safety, their significance-

But It could not. It did not.

At last, someone, a stranger

Who learned to love me in my sickness,

In my dark, dullness

At seventeen, sunken into a shade of hopelessness

Who showed me love from the inside out again

Despite the hollowness that became my being

In spite of the most important and beautiful parts that were missing

Still, unconditional it was

and comfortable, I became.

Why change when I can take up no space and no sound and be accepted ?

When I can be loved for being a fraction of who I am and feel whole ?

A new source for a new self

Exceptional for it was unexpected

Not bound by blood or belief

It was above and beyond what I had accepted

Until-

this love's sacred sweetness became blurry with its

insistence to silence

To allow myself to be interrupted, to slowly be taken advantage of, to be politely put to one side

And still call myself lucky-

Since that is all that is left.

Bird with a broken wing. I lost my mother, and I lost myself. I can't be sure which came first.

I can't say where to go from here, from now

I can't find my way toward the lost

and found
(too full anyhow)

Eyes closed, I remain

Blindly bumping into brick walls built by reckless boys that ruin my name

Until I blackout and lose the memory

Of what that name used to mean

When it was first given to me

How the boundless source once felt

Before it was given boundaries.
How the unconditional love once existed
before it was given conditions.

How it felt to be who I once was
Before the source was swallowed up

by what I have become.