Reclamation

The thing about leaving

is that I didn’t just walk out the door —

I had to dig myself out.

Through the mud,

the shit,

the self-doubt that wrapped itself around me

like a second skin.

They said I was too much.

Then they said I was not enough.

And somewhere between those lies,

I forgot how to exist in my own body.

I stopped writing.

Stopped camping.

Stopped being loud at sunsets

or laughing until my chest burned.

I made myself small,

soft,

easy to live beside,

so no one would call me difficult 

again.

They never read my poetry,

but they studied my pain like a map.

They learned where to press to make me flinch,

where to laugh to make me fold.

And I did fold —

again and again —

until all that was left of me

was a shadow

of who I used to be.

But one day,

I woke up inside a body that refused to keep shrinking.

A mother’s body,

heavy with exhaustion,

love,

and the kind of guilt that whispers 

this is all your fault.

It wasn’t my fault.

It was never my fault.

Therapy cracked open what I thought was ruin

and found something living —

something stubborn,

something that still remembered

what it felt like to be me.

Even when everything turned again,

when they said,

 I’m different now. I’ll change.

I saw the same old wounds dressed in new language, 

new clothes, 

a new name,

And said, no.

I left.

Shaking.

Smaller.

But whole.

And now, I am writing again.

Slow,

careful,

like a baby bird,

leaving the nest

for the very first time. 

I am teaching my mind that the voice calling me unworthy

isn’t mine anymore.

I am remembering how it feels

to hold a camera in my hand,

to hold a pen that doesn’t tremble,

to dream of camping trips and

vast, open skies.

I reach for the girl who was buried years ago,

the one who danced 

barefoot under the stars,

and laughed without apology,

and I tell her —

You’re safe now.

You can come home.