I have a little girl in me
who sits crouched and hiding in a corner,
terrified, dreading what will come.
She is bent over and collapsed,
like a Jew from the old world ghetto,
the weight of thousands of years
of hounding heavy in her bones,
her eyes restless and turning away.
She does not see the point of living.
I see her clearly now,
and that is important,
because she has not been
seen, her ongoing pain,
the loss of her aliveness
overlooked in the litany of
suffering and death.
I stand witness to her today
and to all those who carry
such lead in their shoes,
each step taken, scratched forward,
on hands and knees.
How can she be released?
She still fears.
I sit beside her quietly first
for a long time.
And then
I call on the love of the universe
the love of the eternal witness
the love inherent in the grass
and the trees and her own, my own, breath.
I call on this love as POWER,
the only power
that can return her power,
empower her
to stand up into her agency
and step forward into this life.
Photo by cottonbro studio at Pexels
