Find it in the curious
absence of a certain
dread, the beat that led
to a drop from the
edge of the atmosphere where
breathing is not
taken for granted; an
intemperate impatience for
what comes next;
the idle mindless torment (an
itch in reverse)
of flesh meeting flesh,
returning to One.
What does it mean to you to heal?
Does healing feel like a destination or a process?
How do you recognize healing in yourself and others?
Because of course my own words, selected and randomized so I couldn’t manipulate them, would continue to have the last laugh.
Of course the set would play this card one year later; I am not the one laying out this strange tarot. Of course it would one year from when I sat where I’m sitting now, the telling that wrote itself searing through, demanding to join the groundswell of voices. From when the strange combination of Dr. Ford’s testimony, an observation by Michael Moore that hit too close to home, and an eerie reincarnation of the abuser, gut pressed to my back, rotted 180-proof breath in my hair, hands pinching and grabbing as he trapped me against a counter while others laughed and drank and heaped toppings into soft tacos, just inches from history repeating itself.
Of course now, when I’m recognizing the fatigue one might expect deep into a period of intensive, intentional self-inquiry (navel-gazing, if you prefer). When I’m so sick of myself I can’t imagine how anyone’s still reading. When I look back at the moments when I recognized how little I actually know, the course corrections in the work as I returned my focus to securing my own oxygen mask, first and foremost.
Of course now, that word, encouraging and taunting, reminding me that I’m not done, that I’m only just getting started.
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