Little girl,
I see your pain.
I see your suffering.
You keep it in a lockbox on your sleeve, right next to the key, just waiting for someone to see it.
You hide behind a bottle like maybe someday, someone will see all the hurt, magnified by the liquid.
Just like the tears on your cheeks magnify your freckles.
Every single mark, different, unique in the way that it has shaped you.
You talk to strangers like they’re your best friend.
Your value, measured by your false intimacy.
Your worth, defined by the laughs you draw from them, anyone who will listen.
You avoid alone time, you stay busy, because the minute you are alone you are surrounded by every demon you’ve crossed along the way.
The damage is done, no need to go back there.
All the things that weren’t your fault, become your responsibility. It isn’t fair.
So, you run to the next, as if you’ve forgotten the disease you’d opted to escape from, begins again where you are headed.
A perpetual cycle of malice and discontent.
Little girl,
You are a light.
You are your own savior.
No need to give the key away.
Wipe those tears from your eyes.
Put away the bottle.
Unleash the warrior within, fighting to protect you from those demons you flee from so desperately.
Release the belief that you won’t make it.
I want to know, little girl, why not you?
Rewrite the narrative in your mind telling you to stay small, quiet, weak.
Turn your pain into power, your lessons into experiences.
Let the path that you have illuminated for yourself help others who may need to know, that they are safe.
See yourself, little girl.
Your world, your life, is now yours to cocreate.
Nobody can steal your light.