My heart has learned to beat again, so long it sat in a spare room with little joy, with bacon fat and lard filling the spaces where love, hope and care should be. I’d stopped believing I was worthy of friends, of unrequested hugs and smiles, and thought I should just continue till it’s time to stop, but friends tell me to pick up my ass as they want to see me walk, run and fly again.
The first step is hard, I mean, how do I become me? I am me, who else am I? Where did I put that thing I was before the damage and the hate took hold, back when I believed I was kind and not a monster. Maybe for me it starts with the beat of a single drum, the first stroke of my calloused hand on a skin. Then a second and a third, until I am playing so fast the sound becomes a shield, a blade, a hand stroking my face and a kiss on my lips and… yes, I remember those, before I broke the world, before I hurt myself, before this guilt, back when I mattered.
Then I find a voice, a song and a choir of friends who join with me and become a mirror to myself, I look and see, I’m no monster, I’m just a man, a vessel filled with what’s put in me, I didn’t do that to myself, or maybe I did sometimes, maybe it’s all I had to eat, I’d rather starve than eat that shit again.
And, now I need to dance, but what if people laugh, what if I’m no good, what if I don’t fucking care and dance and sing and drum and write like I was meant to write and share this thing of words with you, my friends, my precious friends.
