Pierced

Pierced. I saw it. I stepped out onto the ice and I saw it. I skated, clumsily, around the frozen water, slipping on the smoother sections and stuttering on the stubble. I avoided the bright light of its point. Inside, I could feel a pulsing heat. I tried to freeze the warmth I felt, suffocate it with the cold, snuff it out with the surrounding snow. But it was too much. Some fatal combination of the smooth and the stubble, the rough and the watery, toppled me towards the center of the ice. Facing the point. The warmth inside me was growing. Thickening and expanding, it began to pour out over my skin. Then it was too hot. I was sweating, panicking, the cold intercepted and the sweat froze and suddenly, I was encased in an icy hot shell that was once pleasant and unassuming. The point was getting closer. Closer, and closer, and closer still, it began to take form. A pick, a spear, an arrow? For a second, it flickered and it looked like...you? But no, it was still hurtling toward me and my last clumsy stumble landed me upright, my heart directly aligned with the object's trajectory. I could not move, all I could do was hope, pray, cry, cry, I was crying, please, let it be the arrow. But it wasn't the arrow. It was just an icicle. And I was pierced.

Roots

Roots. Roots strengthen. Roots expand. Roots last. I have roots. I'm strong. I'm stronger than most. I know this about myself. It is not an opinion, it is just a fact. I force myself to be strong because I grew up in an environment where I needed to be strong. Adaptation is necessary for survival. Strength was an adaptation I had to accept. Bark. Bark peels. Bark holds the burdens of other creatures. Bark can be ripped. I have bark. There have been more times in my life than I'd like to admit when I've been torn. I've allowed others to abuse me. I've absorbed other people's burdens. I've let myself sustain wounds even though I'm stronger than them. And it hurts. It hurts like hell. I can see it happening. I know it's happening. I am completely and utterly aware that it's happening. I am accepting pain from another person. And yet I let it happen. Time and time again, I let it happen. In so many situations, I am strong. In all other situations, I am in control. But I let myself peel. I let myself be used. I let myself rip. And why? I forget that I am strong. I forget that I have the ability to expand. I forget that beyond everything else, I have roots. No matter how strong I am, not matter how long I am able to fight, sometimes, all I need to do is stand on my roots. Roots last. I have roots.