For a long time my only request, was let me feel, let me heal, let me learn to love.
I should have known to be careful what I wished for.
You so often hear from women "I am afraid to cry because if I start I can't stop."
I understand this
Because I cry weekly.
I joked to him that putting eyeliner on in the morning is a futile endeavour.
Or maybe my own joke with the universe
As God has me meet them halfway.
Because they know that
My tears are my medicine that waters the parched ground of my feminine heart.
For the old version of myself who could not and would not let go.
Afraid that if she dropped her guard for a second
Her castle would fall to the enemy.
Now I am a woman who is too much,
Who has softened beyond all hope of return
A woman who wails and writes and prays
And soaks in hot water
And lets herself be kissed better
Where once I would go still as death
And leave my body, teeth chattering
To escape the pain.
My body still lets me down
My body is tired of living in fear
But now this body has learned to let itself
Be soothed
And the sadness moves through me
In a space safer than any I've known.
And when I am spent,
Instead of running
I've learned to stay.
- Jenny Wren