The Grin Seeker

Your foster years look different when you didn’t run away until you were 25.

Your attachment style also looks different when the abusers were the first ones to ever hold you.

To touch you.

And unfortunately,

To teach you.

That a home comes with a cost.

Homes are the only thing that have made feel lost.

Why do you think I leaned so heavily into my faith?

When they told me this world was not my home,

It’s the only thing that actually made sense.

So I spent my life.

Trying to escape it.

To be anywhere but here.

To be anything but alive.

I spent my life trying to die.

They practiced what they preached.

That’s why I believed them.

It’s just.

No one saw the other side of the sermon.

Like I did.

No one saw what I hid.

Yet, despite all odds,

Here I am.

Sinking into the only home I’ve ever known.

Me.

And this body I live in.

The body that carried all of their sins.

Here I am.

Abandoning them

Like they abandoned me.

Here I am knee deep in setting myself free.

But also,

Here I am.

Trying to forgive the woman that murdered me.

Trying to forgive the only person I’ve loved more than my own mother.

Trying to forgive the woman that used to choke herself until there were bruises on her neck.

While all her daily paperwork was in check.

Trying to forgive the woman that was powerful enough

To pre meditate

Her own destiny.

I’m trying to forgive the woman that thought death was setting herself free.