Was I not enough in this body & mind to earn your authentic, thriving love?

As a baby was I not enough to warrant your  protection, your loving hugs, you warm embraces?

Broken bones, lacerations, burns, no hugs, no kisses, you turned away from my clear cheeked innocence, knotting  my stomach inside out, no hospital, healing alone, writhing in pain in a bed with a closed door. I remember the bright tapestry of an orange blanket & the only love I felt was from a tattered stuffed brown dog I used to carry everywhere until one day she disappeared

CPS came & took dad away

Dad gave me affection, but sometimes in the wrong ways, & then he hit me

It was too much!

But finally we were back together again & the obvious abuse stopped

Then our teens bloomed & we were emotionally & verbally attacked, striking my own will within to survive, to look past & beyond, as I distinctly felt her collapsing

I’d overdose! Stomach pumped! Looks of disgust all around me! They hated me for it!

I’d become assaulted by a stranger

Left in the dust & told “don’t you dare scream!” So I held my breath! No talking, no comforting, merely emotional suppressing until I became motionless & stilled like a crisp cold lake in the dawn of winter

I tried once to tell my mom & she screamed at me with a hot anger, because I was to blame & needed to stay silent

“Don’t say a word,” she declared, “these things are better off unspoken”

We could only speak about the good! Because it made us look good!

But as good as we looked on the outside, it didn’t matter, because a young will was broken, left vulnerable to all her inner self-doubts

Dejected, unworthy, & unloveable my inner voices screamed while my outer shell remained confidently quiet, frozen, my head turned down, my skin tingling

“You aren’t capable!” They screamed with cheeks hot red! Exhuming my tears.

“You are weakness!” They taught me, “You might be pretty but it’s the inside that counts!” They hollered from across the room.

“You aren’t smart!” They screamed with hot cheeks & a throat on fire.

A neighbor called my haircut foxy & my mother leaned in with a whisper resounding the soft shutters of hell, “don’t get any ideas dear!”

Trapped! Blaming myself! Set adrift in shame tossing me into a dark ocean with no lifeboats & when the sharks came to eat me I let them

I seemed to go on despite it all, but never escaped the ocean’s embrace completely

I felt bound to it, filling me with dread

Succumbing to anxiety, fear, self-doubt, depression, suicidal ideations

Crawling under a rug & dissapearing seemed a comforting option

After I had children, they told me I was not a good parent because I was weak & I let them smear me because I was still vying for their love & acceptance smashed & mutilated behind a slammed door, air-tight, leaving my knuckles bare & bleeding from knocking & hoping it would open one day! Because they weren’t always like this. Scraps & crumbs of hope all along this trail of tears kept me begging for more.

But I finally stepped off their bridge away from those dark ocean waters & I began to scream back into their faces

I dreamt of betterness & so I gave my children all my love, my kisses, my hugs, vowing to protect them even while dysfunction raged all around me

I moved several states away in an attempt to find peace

I come from a bitter cup, a generational curse

How to escape it, I couldn’t grasp completely, I only knew to live with a new found will to change it, to act with softness, & to let a kindheartedness inspire all my movements, & it came natural for me because I always loved small animals, & I remembered a stray cat I loved & took care of when I was a young girl spending all my time outside. I bought a dog to love & for my children to love. My parents always hated animals. I didn’t! I can’t help but think my love for animals helped me think differently

Love was inside me, & kindheartedness, too!

I continued to suffer with depression, anxiety, & fear despite my desire to give my heart

Then I stumbled upon a truth, finally!

I am strong, I am kind! I could see through the wrecking ball of shame at last! I didn’t need to carry false assumptions hurrled at me anymore! I could be me, & realize it was good, in fact it was everything! It made me enough, at last! I took this knowledge & cherished it, & I gave it to my children

They call that cycle breaking, & though I don’t believe I’m much I’m everything if I can stop a certain kind of pain from repeating it’s ugly course

Most of all, I’m enough!