No Shame

No Shame

There is no shame in bleeding.
No guilt in suffering.
No harm in crying.
No pride in hurting.

We are human only
in what we feel,
and in what we leave behind
in others.

Once,
I felt only through pain.
I reacted only with anger.
But those fires were never mine.

The hatred they flung
was a mirror turned inward.
Their brutality
just the howl of their own self-loathing.

And still,
I carried it.

But I am not cruel
for choosing myself.
I am not callous
for closing the door.

Fifty years the bogeyman rattled my latch.
I fed him with fear,
thinking he lived outside me.
But he thrived in my head,
gnawing at the corners.

Now he is locked away.
Bolted.
Silent.

The splinters from their dragging,
once buried in my skin,
are falling loose,
dust in the light.

Some days,
the wounds throb like a second pulse.
But they do not own me.

They are rivers carved into my flesh,
and I have learned
to read them as a map.

Each scar a landmark,
each ache a compass point.

They guide me here,
to this breath,
to this moment.

To myself.