My vulnerability is vicious.
Covered in thorns, it whips around me like a crusted bandage stroking open wounds.
Once, when I was someone else, it was buried deep where I could not go. It hid under cold black blood, waiting for me to remember. But memories are cheaply made, and mine always arrived broken.
How can you remember what never was?
And so the softness I never had remained lost to me.
You met me when I was bold, fearless, and empty.
And I was enough.
You held me when I weakened – when my voice cracked, and my words stumbled and felled by the realization that I needed substance, I found myself crawling at my own feet.
And I was enough.
No one could love me the way you do. No one could accept every sliver of broken glass trailing behind me the way you do. No one.
Not even me.
Especially not me.
And then my vulnerability rose from the dead. Birthed from loss and grief, raised on weeping pain, I filled with the fragile blood of the stranger I’m meant to be.
I walk around in my old body, pretending I am still enough.
But I am not enough for me.
And so if I am enough for you, how can you see me?
Colloquially Speaking 