There is a path we take.
It is not a journey forward but one that leads us back.
Back to the places we were first broken.
Back to the places we fear the most.
We resist it, fight it.
But on that path lies a trail of broken pieces. Splintered fragments of ourselves we left behind when they were too sharp to hold and cut us open. Back then we didn’t know how to stop the bleeding. So we left the pieces, scattered on the path, and continued on our journey.
Removed from the pain but separated from ourselves.
But now, we must go back for those pieces.
For this is how we put ourselves back together.
This is how we become whole.
We gather the pieces we abandoned and place them inside us where they always belonged.
Find courage, dear one, and tread upon the path. Pick up the broken pieces and hold them close. Remember the way they once cut your hands, yet no longer do, for now your hands are stronger and your skin is thicker and though scarred, you no longer bleed.
Feel the weight of the pieces in your hands and notice you are strong enough to carry that weight now. Turn them over, adjust them, move them, line them up. Make sense of them. Place them side by side. Repair them. Restore them. See the way they come together with cracks and lines and faults and imperfect edges that will never fit like they used to.
But see how they are once more made whole.
This is how broken things mend.
How broken people mend.
In flawed perfection.
It was never your fault you left so much of yourself behind. But now is the time to go back and pick up the pieces. Do not fear the path. You know the way, you have walked it before. It is your path. And these are your pieces. They belong to you. Pick them up and put them back together and place them inside your chest. Allow them to make you whole again as you were always meant to be.
Broken no more.
For this, dear one, is the path of the survivor.
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Photo by Mariona Campmany, via Unsplash
Writer. Poet. Survivor. Warrior. The Unravelled Heart, a collection of poetry and prose reflecting on trauma, abuse, love, loss and healing, now available worldwide on Amazon or at www.kathyparker.com.au
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