Somehow she became

the voice that quieted his mind,

a healing for his aching heart.

She brought laughter to his soul

and flashes of forgotten joy flickered

through his blood when she said his name.

Somehow she became his light

and he became her

Everything.

First of all, let me confess that I quit writing for over 20 years because I allowed someone’s feelings to carry more weight than my own. I looked into their judgement bearing eyes and tossed my writing in the bottom drawer where it stayed, gathering dust.

By doing so, I suffocated the part of me that was real, the truth of me, the softest part of my heart. I dimmed the light, shelved the dreams, let the fire go cold. No poetry flowed from within onto waiting paper, no stories of Warrior Queens, or howling Wolves, or love overcoming, or the victory of freedom were told, in epic fashion, by the clicks of my keyboard.

After years of that, my soul became one long silent scream of fury.

I will not tell you whose words cracked my heart like an egg finely fractured without breaking open. He would not appreciate the attention. But the words I read hurt me, lit me up, made me feel the something irrevocable that I held inside me. Wonder stirred within me, and as it rushed through my blood, the pain of a thousand needles stabbed me as my heart began to wake up. It was a terrifying ecstasy to feel something.

So I sat down, and I began to write.

I wrote over 100 poems and sent them out into the world, I began writing stories and submitting them, flinging my work out there with a frenzy that defied my fear. Because, goddammit, I was alive again. I was up, and breathing fire, and I refused to lie back down and shut up.

Then came judgment day.

“What’s wrong with you? Why are you so angry?”

“Are you getting divorced?”

“Are you talking about me when you wrote that?”

“It’s embarrassing to have to explain what you’re writing”

“What will people think?”

The part of me that will not be silent was immediate in response to these interrogations. I knew what had to happen. I knew I couldn’t buckle in, or show any sign of weakness if I was going to survive. I knew if I had a single prayer of ever leading a life woven through with joy, I would have to draw my sword, and cut the head off of the snake.

So I began un-friending anyone who questioned what or why I wrote my words.

Family? Gone. Mutual friends? Gone.Even, (especially) my husband is no longer on my friends list. Nobody who questions what I write remains on my page. Because I will write what I want. I will say what I’m led to say. If I’m writing about you, then trust me, you will have already heard every single word face to face, and you chose to ignore it. Your bad, not mine.

The other side of that coin is artistic license. 

Does Stephen King really have an alien space ship in his basement, or lose weight via gypsy curse, or been held  prisoner by a nurse willing to crush his bones?  God, I hope not. Does Dean Koontz really time travel, save himself from multiple killers, and witness the world being changed by golden retrievers? Okay, that last one is possible, but let’s stick to the topic.

All of what I write is the truth as I see it.

Some of it is my truth. Some is someone else’s truth. Sometimes it’s everybody’s truth. Sometimes it’s fiction based on truth. Sometimes it’s make-believe with a moral to the story for crying out loud. The point is, I will write what I want, and no one will stop me. Not kidding, it’s a deal-breaker.

My soul no longer screams in fury, it sings the truth of me with the purity of an operatic aria, my words, the air to my heart.

So let me be clear. Write your words. No matter what. Sing it loud. Bear witness. No excuses, come what may…

Take no prisoners.

When I meet certain people in person, or even online after a period of time, there comes that moment when my heart grows too big for my chest and it reaches out to bring each person in to where my soul is, and they belong to me. From that moment on, whether they like it or not, they are mine. I will love them, help them when I can, defend them, and yank a knot in their tails if I have to, for their own well-being.

I have found the one whom my soul loves.

Song of Solomon 3:4

There is no rhyme or reason to it, no plan or anything to be gained by the loving of another. It just is. It is pure and honest and not to be dismissed if you have a lick of sense about you at all. Because its rare, and wonderful, and the purest of magic. You can’t stop the feeling, nor can the other keep you from it. It is a super power that heals me, and whether they admit it or not, it heals the one gathered close whether literally or figuratively speaking.

My soul was exposed, fully naked, baring truths for only you to see.

~ Stephanie Melish

There is a courage necessary to draw people into your open heart. Twice as much courage as it takes to open it up to begin with. You risk ridicule, misunderstanding, abuse, and purposeful injury. But if you’re brave enough to chance it, you have the potential for the greatest joys, strongest friendships, lessons of a lifetime, and love that never wavers. You might gain the other half of your soul whether it be friend, or lover, it truly doesn’t matter to the heart that you open.

According to Greek mythology, humans were originally created with 4 arms, 4 legs, and a head with 2 faces. Fearing their power, Zeus split them into two separate parts, condemning them to spend their lives in search of their other halves. ~ Plato, The Symposium

There are many I love, both known, and sight unseen. I cannot help it, nor do I want to. My love for them fills me with the greatest joy because, if we are all love personified, we have to express it to really live to our fullest potential. It can be words spoken, money shared to help or heal, support silently given, or just a quiet and complete understanding that so few ever experience.

The people I’ve gathered to my heart cannot be replaced. Were they to remove themselves, they would be mourned for the duration of this life. They would not be replaced by the hearts I gather after their leaving, nor would my missing them lessen until I find them the next time around. I have in my heart the famous, the infamous, the pillars of the community and what some consider the dregs of society.

I love them all. They belong to me…

And I always remember that the lives I see were chosen ahead of time by each person for the lessons they would share with the world from their experiences. What kind of courageous heroism does it take to pull that onto yourself?

I takes the kind of soul I draw into my family of choice, to treasure and protect. These people are my reason for being. This is why I gather them, these are my soul family…

Find yours, love them…shine.

I grow weary of the worlds I carry. The ones I allowed others to create for me, the ones I created for myself to appease those so uncomfortable with the irrepressible  parts of me. There are truths of me that I haven’t shown in the centuries I have existed since I was small.

I hear the clock ticking, the grains of sand whispering to me that I have to move now. I have to do more than stand at the edge of this precipice waiting for permission to exhale the dust of immobility. To take my first free breath, and laugh joyously before leaping into the next whatever.

I still hear clearly the admonishments to be still, be quiet, don’t question, calm down, don’t laugh so loud, cry so much, smile so freely. Each one a binding, a board to be nailed, a bar to be placed at the windows where my soul was kept. The pain of rejections becoming self-rejection kept me in a state of inertia.

But now, my heart is cracking, the magic seeping in calls to the joy sleeping and I tremble at the force of my desire to live.

I can feel the relief in my bones as I carefully set these worlds aside in the moss of their own reality. But I hear them crying, and feel the tears of the pain I cause in the letting go, the cutting off, and it stops me on the edge where I stand now.

Is my need to live greater than what others need from me to feel whole?

On the other hand, if those who need me don’t know me, then what is it exactly they will miss in their lives when it is a lie they love? My heart has always taken on the experiences of other hearts whether it be joy or sorrow. It has been to my detriment that I let these both carry more weight in the deciding of my path than they should.

My nature is to fix, to heal, to nurture. Foolishly, I haven’t guarded my heart or boundaries from the relentless pull of those who feel entitled to everything, and I allowed myself to be depleted to the marrow, and shut my heart down in an attempt to preserve the spark of me that is now barely a glimmer.

I smell freedom, I feel the truth rushing against my skin as I stand here, and my need for it is fierce.

I want to be seen with eyes that aren’t afraid of what I am. I want to be heard by ears that demand the truth of me and will not accept otherwise. I want the heart that is unafraid to tame and be tamed for the sake of something miraculous between us.

“But if you tame me, then we shall need each other. To me, you will be unique in all the world.”

~Antoine de Saint-Exupery The Little Prince

If this is not to be found anywhere in my lifetime, then I must have the smell, and the truth, and the fierceness of my need for both to give me the courage to get out of bed every morning and continue my experiencing of what might be.

The magic grows so strong in my heart now that I am close to not caring whether I fall, fail, or fly from this edge where I stand with my heart pounding its way out of my chest. The more frightened I become, the more brilliant my smile. As the rock of passive existence crumbles beneath my feet, I have an insane urge to throw my arms wide and laugh with all of me.

The thought of stepping back, stepping down, and returning to the grey and joyless is unbearable. To those who, in their own weaknesses, wish this on me, know this…

I will not go quietly. Be warned.