Fragments of Cassandra

Healing is a hallway where every door I open looks like the way out-
until the walls quietly rearrange themselves while I'm still walking.

One good day. Then three; 
where my bones feel too heavy to carry, 
my mind becomes a room 
with no windows, 
and every thought turns into an echo.

Nothing happened. No tragedy. No shattered heart. No terrible phone call.

It simply arrives-
like someone quietly dimming every light;
while I'm still standing in the middle of the room.

And somehow that hurts even more.

Because I keep asking my heart to explain what even my mind cannot understand.

I interrogate every smile, 
every moment of peace, 
wondering which one I held incorrectly.

Then the spiral begins.

I become my own executioner, 
placing every ounce of blame 
upon a soul that has already been bruised enough.

"See?" 
"You were never getting better."

The mountain I thought I'd climbed, reveals itself to be another hill.

Then another. 
And another.

And for a while, I mourn the person I believed I'd become yesterday.

I tell myself I am back at the beginning.
Back to square one.
Back to surviving instead of living.

But healing has never walked in straight lines.
It circles. It stumbles. It doubles back to make sure old wounds are truly closed.

Perhaps these are not roadblocks.
Perhaps this is pain checking to see whether I still answer when it calls my name.

And perhaps the reason I keep getting back up-
even while trembling, even while crying, even while believing I have failed-

is proof that I am farther along than my pain would ever allow me to believe.

Because square one does not know how to keep standing.

I do.


Be'ahava,
The Mourning Bird