Burning Bridges

The past, when it is ugly, can be a weight too heavy for one to carry into the future. Abstracting a much needed lesson from the darkness can bring us into heavenly light. However, the source of such darkness can be laid to rest. I've been walking around with steady footsteps wondering why occasionally my legs grow weary; why I sweat when it is cold outside; why I struggle to breathe at moments when the present and future are standing right before me. I've been carrying dead-weight. Like that thing mom said years ago that hurt my feelings; that quasi relationship that  provided an empty touch warm enough to remind me I was alive; that unrequited love I had for a now dear friend who still cannot see who I am and what I possess; that "best-friend" that ultimately wore that crown with no sense of honor because all we had was time and stories from immature days but no substantive foundation to launch us into the future with each others' best interest in mind.

Those bridges to darkness from which I came remain tethered to the strings of my heart stroking my keys at inconvenient times dredging up inconvenient truths about the scars I carry, the things I've seen, the hearing I once wished I would lose for no other reason than to block out the noise of life and misery.

Bridges sometimes need to be burned. Let everything that rests between my now and my then be turned to ash and the blemishes and scars be part of the larger fabric of me. My skin is woven together by stories of highs and lows holding in my color, my sex, my politics, my intellect, my ambition, my joys, my pains, my truths, my lies, my fears, my here and now...

I ain't too heavy to carry. I ain't too big to hold.  I ain't too cold to love. I ain't too dumb to see that I have the ability to release myself. I ain't too afraid to accept my own liberation. I ain't too religious to listen to God. I ain't too fool to go into light with darkness in my eyes. I ain't too educated to recognize life outside of the textbook. I ain't too beautiful to see my ugly. I ain't too loud to hear my own voice. I ain't too proud to smell my own shit. I ain't too me today to be better tomorrow.