For years I hid under heaps of accolades and projections. The many masks of my deep conditioning and fears built walls so thick that even I have struggled so much to climb out of them. On this other side, all that was worth revealing was hidden: my vulnerabilities and intricacies. All that made me human, all remained shut until you.
You. A warm touch. A resounding hello. A deep breath. An extension outwards, towards. You are sun, and I am a Morning Glory unfurling by the touch of dawn’s light. I turn towards you.
You unearthed so much of me and my history. You saw me as both a child and a woman. Co-existing. Both ‘me’ and ‘we’.
Through the photographs, the postcards, and the poetry I posted on my walls. Through the dried leaves stuck between forgotten pages. You witnessed what I could not speak out loud. Puzzle pieces and puzzles pieced. Who I was, who I am now, and who I am yet to be: ever crumbling, ever-growing, ever yearning, still.
In this space of ‘we’, there is love. A quiet one. A knowing one. You of all could understand these secrets that still haunt me at night. You persisted. You held on and witnessed ‘me’ and ‘we’ through it all. “It was not easy but I was loved each place”, a reminder from one poem. Indeed, I was only trying to be happy. ‘We’ are all just trying to be happy.
Of course, you knew. It wasn’t easy - for you too.