From Rock Bottom to Fertile Ground

I've learned that rock bottom is different for everyone.
I use to trick myself into believing that I've never known pain because my symptoms were different.

They didn't hurt any less.
The bruises weren't any more beautiful.
I didn't know beautiful.
I didn't know she lived inside me, didn't know she was the clawing in my throat begging me to use my voice.
Beauty was one shade.
Dark and lonely,
And searching for compassion in the hearts of all the wrong people.

Rock bottom is a lot darker than they say in the books.
Much like my skin and midnight.
The movies don't tell you about loosing yourself.
Don't tell you that you will find yourself in the same places you left her.

I lost her.

Every carefree laugh.
All the songs and dances.
My poems.
Every beautiful thing I've always been.

I lost her.

It took so long to find her, and when I did she was unrecongnizable.
She was frail, growing smaller with years of me telling her not to speak.
Not to shine.
Not to grow.
I water her everyday  now.
Whisper love into her pedals and turn old soil into fertile ground.

You feel broken now.
But you will soon find someone.
And they will decorate your tears as beautiful.
Paint the pain into battle wounds that only you had the strength to live through.
They will smooth the edges that have been roughed over time and time again.
Somehow you will find someone, who will never make you feel shattered again.
I pray that someone is yourself.