* Searching for my Wings

Time passes quickly now.  They are growing old.   They will leave this earth with a bang not a whimper.  Hundreds will attend the wake of these two, for they are from an old family.  One of the first to settle this community.  People will come together to grieve and celebrate their lives, lived the very best they knew how.

I will never know when they are gone.  I will here no details of their passing.  I will never have the privilege of saying goodbye and thank you for whatever they could give me.  I will never grieve and celebrate with loved ones.  I have the deepest of sadness for this thought.  They are my only close blood, my kin.  We come from the same stock.  We share the same roots.  And yet, it is their wish to never see me again.

They scream these needs in loud defiant silence.  Sign language indicates "No Trespassing.  We will Shoot".  Leave us be.  You are not one of ours.  Never a word has been spoken.  They cannot bear to hear their words appear in front of me.

Bitterness and contempt is locked away in an old barristers trunk.  It takes three keys to open that one.  The keys were lost so long ago.  No one will ever understand for sure what's inside.

It's fermented and rotten.  It bubbles and boils.  It causes illness.  Still they keep it hidden and cloistered from view.

I set you free.  It is your own truth, not mine.  Dance to the rhythm of your drummer, to the beat of your bitterness.  You are old and hard and unbending.  Stiff from anger and pain.  You bleed and yet are unaware.  Go with my love and my blessings.

Myself?  Another question.  Huge for me.  Am I able to free myself.  Will I allow myself to fly, to leave my dearest hopes and dreams behind?

Harder than it may seem to leave my blood, my kin.  I know the truth.  There is no love.  My box of hope is still full.  To empty it is a frightening thought. To face the cold and the hard and the difficult. The facts.  I don't want to face the cold, the hard and the empty box.  Despair may quickly fill the void and then what?  My mind won't let it go.  My spirit longs to heal.  The pain gnaws at me, raw and unyielding.  It claws and scratches relentlessly, creeping into my dreams even as I sleep.   The truth?  The cold harsh raw truth?  I don't have a family.  And really, I never did.  How very harsh those words are to see in black and white.  How will I ever face it?  How will I ever heal?