Brialee Turner

I thought that
My body
Had reclaimed it’s emotional
Experiences and that
I had returned to a
Sense of feeling that I had experienced
Before my world went
Dark and
Numb and
Cold.

Now it’s five Novembers later
And I realize that my heart
Is also rediscovering a depth
Of feelings that I forgot
Were mine to know.

And I remembered that
There are glowing embers
Of emotions that are still waiting
To be re-experienced
As the being who is constantly
In creation.

And a sense that I can have hope
That not all of these rekindled emotions
Are all going to start
Wildfires to clear my path,
But may also be glowing candles
That remind me the beauty
Of being human, or make me want to
Pause time and take a picture with
The camera of my
Beating and bleeding heart.

I noticed this again for the first time,
after I finally confronted one of the wounds
Inside of me from the physical cuts and pain
Of someone else’s pictures.
I cried and told the thin
Female figure, dressed in black,
That she needed to hang on,
Just to experience life and then
With those moments she would
Know how to keep alive.

I didn’t realize that by preventing
Myself from feeling,
I was preventing the healing
And then all of the light,
And the glow that I might allow myself to feel.
That by giving myself healing,
I could offer that gift in more fullness
To the world.

I noticed it for the first time sitting on a bench
When love entered me because
I had the courage to be myself
And then someone accepted me
Without doubt. This feeling was a
Warmth to my soul and melted
A portion of one of the cages
With a name tag assigned
To me and my
Identity.

And then again when I saw the
Figure of the messiah,
A projection of grotesque imagery,
And I wanted to hold the man’s hand.
He meant differently to me,
And in that fellow humanness,
There was that feeling of empathy
For a being like myself.

I am resurrected.