I Am Tired Of Healing

but I must.

still, I rise — on film, 2022.

I am tired of healing.

I am tired of the ache that seeps from my wounds.

I am tired of the heaviness that settles in my lungs.

I am tired of the angst that stifles my breath.

I am tired of being my heart’s own savior. Sometimes I yearn not to be the balm. Sometimes I yearn for my soul not to be required war before it can feel the ease.

I am constantly tending. Sometimes the searing desire pleads for stillness. For a song with no words. For a dance with no hymn, just a gathering of my bones and a moving of them.

I yearn for the slowness of every Sunday morning.
I yearn for the stillness of granddaddy’s porch after rain.
I yearn for the whisper, and then the howl, of windsong.
For the shake, and then the settling, of a breeze.

I yearn for a softness that years built on survival doesn’t afford.
I yearn for a world that I don’t have to just survive in. I am unlearning.

I have bled beneath the debris of my mother’s storms. Sometimes I wish my ancestors had unlearned the tunes of suffering woven into our lineage. Now I am spun between all these webs, these vines cutting off circulation, this body growing indigo. Unweaving and unlearning. I am tired of having bloodshed here.

I am the fresh wind of their burdens, the rage against their inequities. But what about the softness that I yearn for, or the softness that yearns for me?

My heart burns on my tongue. My tongue yearns for the words. All I can muster up is the screams of a thousand resting souls that never had the language.

Sometimes I wish these curses were already broken, yet here I am — healing for generations so that my children don’t have to bend their backs this way. Mourn this way. Grieve this way. Fall to their knees and beg for God this way.

So that they can afford tenderness. Rest. Ease.

On these days, I remind myself:
I must break as much as necessary in order to truly heal.
I must break as much as necessary in order to truly heal.
I must break as much as necessary in order to truly heal.
I must break as much as necessary in order to truly heal.

I must break, I must hurt, I must feel, and then I must rise — again and again and again. 

a heart feeling, from Nadia Meli of Life Letters.

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If this piece resonated with you, I encourage you to check out my follow up article on the weight of being well.

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