DARE-TO-LOVE-TRUTH-AND-DARE-DUET-COLLECTION-by-Lylah-James-pdfarchive

LILA
It is said that pain comes in waves. Whether it’s
emotional or physical.
The first wave hits you unexpectedly. It’s usually
the most dangerous, the harshest wave.
The second wave, you’re ready for it, but it still hurts.
By the third wave, you’ve grown accustomed to it. The
pain starts to take shape, to build up inside of you. Under
your skin, inside your flesh, buried in your bones, deep in
the marrow of you.
And slowly, your body grows numb.
Your mind goes numb.
You live with the pain; it becomes part of you.
The wave came and went. The pain stayed, with an
angry stubbornness. The wound festered, oozing puss. The
agony grew.
I drowned. I floated. I sunk to the bottom.
My mom always told me to honor the anger, to give pain
the space it needed to breathe, to never run away from my
emotions… to live and breathe it. This is how you learn to
let go, she’d tell me.
But I didn’t know how to let go of the fury coursing
inside of me, of the pain that chased me every waking hour
and into my nightmares.