when they ask me why

to memories

when they ask me why,

why would I want to remember a time filled
with so much pain?
maybe it's because somewhere in the 
total collapse 
of everything I thought I knew and,
everything I now could never become 
when they forced that pain upon me,

maybe it was in that time-
the best part of me was born.

---

I don’t want to unpack all of the things I went through so long ago, it does me no good to dredge it up from hell itself, but there was a time when I wasn’t sure I’d survive it all. Yet somehow I did. And somehow I managed to raise a self-assured young woman, smart and strong, doing things I had only ever dreamed of, she will be everything I couldn’t be. This piece isn’t only about her, but almost 23 years ago one of the best parts of me was born ✨