I am beautifully human

My skull broke the day I was born.

It was too fragile for the ventouse used to deliver me

and for the first eighteen years of my life I thought myself as just that:

Brittle, like aged leaves at the end of autumn

which also happens to be the season of my birth.

 

But I am beautifully human -

I have lived through sexual assault, twice.

Once when I was younger (too young to understand)

and again my sophomore year of college by a boy who understood very well.

 

I am still beautifully human -

Grew through my father’s anger,

his words that degraded every inch of my mother’s skin,

cracked her soul, left pieces I saw scattered in my childhood home.

 

And I am beautifully human -

Grew through my mother’s depression,

her sobs that struck the walls of our home, left scars in my ear drums so deep I can’t unhear them.

 

I am still beautifully human -

Grew to hear the crack in my father’s voice when he cries

from trying to tell me how much he loves me and

the crinkle around his eyes when he laughs (truly, fully laughs)

And the brightness of my mother’s eyes and

the chime of her breath when she laughs (truly, fully laughs).

 

And I am beautifully human -

Grew to meet madness in peace because I am beautifully human -

Holding a heaviness in my heart like gold,

And my soul?

It’s still growing, drifting,

back and forth,

to and from the past to look at all the ugly things I’ve lived through,

but God, it is so beautiful as it drifts forward,

showing me all I have yet to experience.

 

This poem is about: 
Me
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