1.12.2011

Giving it away

I give it away.
All the time.

I give away my confidence and my strength by believing that I am less worthy than you.

I give away my laughter trusting you when you say it is obnoxious.

I give away my tears and the ability to grieve and feel things deeply when I stifle them in pillows and public bathroom stalls because I am shamed by them.

I give away my waistline when I am seduced by neon lights and value menus and I give away my future when I stop at the gas station to throw the evidence away.

I give away my influence when I defer and demure, more comfortable making a joke out of my leadership than embracing and running with it.

I give away things to delicate to mention with every clench of my lips and pick of my finger.

I give it away.

I give away my name when I dream of being someone else.

I give away my face when I look in the mirror and see nothing worth wanting.

I give away my voice when I press my lips together to keep from telling you what happened, how it affected me and why it paralyzes me still.

I give away my hands when I sit on them and do nothing when I see people in need.

I give away my feet when I crawl under the covers day after day and hide in the dark cave of perceived safety.

I give it away.
All of it.
I give it away every day in hundreds of ways.

But I have to grieve that which I have given away and begin the climb up the sides of discarded piles of me. I have to push the covers back, I have to stop sitting on my hands, unpress my lips, see truth in the mirror, wake from the dream, unclench my fingers and stop believing myself to be the joke I keep telling you I am.

I have to stop giving it away.

1 comment:

Lindsey said...

loved this post...i think you are amazing and refreshingly genuine. I also think that, somehow you have a secret door to my innermost thoughts that I don't tell anyone! ( read as: I often feel the same.EXACT.way!)
thank you for you and for being real.