Five

Hiding

In the doorway of my parents’ darkened bedroom

Like a wide-eyed ghost

Too afraid to wake them

As thunder rolled above––

The sky screaming at me

 

Six

Hiding

In the corner of classrooms with lips tightly sealed

Panic rising like a high tide

As children swirled around me

Cowering at the ends of hallway lines––

Last was the only place

That felt safe enough

 

Seven

Hiding

Between my mother’s legs

As other kids smashed a piñata and swarmed the fallen candy

I watched in horror as bodies entangled

Like animals

Eager to devour me

 

Eight

Hiding

Behind the covers of books

I only pretended to read

Words like rolling clouds on the page––

Swirling stormy madness

Too loud inside my head

 

Nine

Hiding

In the letters I wrote

To fairies, pixies, elves

Desperate to find some magic

In this world

 

Ten

Hiding

High up in treetops

Where I could hear the leaves breathing

And finally feel the Earth shift below

It was all too much

And not enough at the same time

I was hungry for the world

 

Eleven

Hiding

In the clothes of a boy

Baggy, ugly, and safe

They buffered me from myself

A distraction from the changing body beneath

Womanhood I refused to accept

 

Twelve

Hiding

From what I did not know

Beginning to wonder––

What was out there

Too afraid to raise my head

And look

 

Thirteen

Hiding

In the miles I collected

Running times I broke

Like shattered trophies

Barely sustaining but addictive nonetheless

Always reaching further––

Into darkness

 

Fourteen

Hiding

In my own self control

Life becoming tighter and tighter

My skin too small

For the screaming person inside

A person I hardly recognized

 

Fifteen

Hiding

From a body I detested

A person I loathed

The failure I saw

In every reflection

 

Sixteen, Seventeen, Eighteen

The reckoning, the suffering, the becoming, the healing, the parts unhealed, the accepting

The learning, the working, the failing, the achieving, the bettering

The writing, the reading, the asking, the answering, the questions unanswered

The question

What’s at stake?

What’s at stake?

 

No more hiding

From thunder

From people

From myself

 

No more cowering in darkness

Afraid of who I may become

If I fight instead of flee

If I breathe instead of suffocate

There is too much at stake in this world

For that

 

The world is bright and I am

Becoming alive

Because those who have come alive

Will save the world