Who is She?

She can feel the feel the wind on her face, but her eyes are hidden from the hope-inducing, warmth and brightness of the sun that shines on her and swaddles her. The heat of a thousand summers washes over her; bathes her; cleanses her; soothes her. No demons. No demands. Only a stillness and a serenity. The future stretches before her, made real in the images that she conjures in her own vivid mind's eye. Images made real by her own imagination: touchable, tangible. Her head is light. It swims. She is heady with hope and expectation. She is a throwback, thrown back to her past as she searches. Searches? For what? Who she is? What she is? She is words unspoken. She is words unwritten.

Clouds pass across the sun and, without warning, the sun and the light is blocked. She is thrown back. Doubt? Always. It creeps up to the self-imposed blindfold, lifts it, looks her in the eye...and smiles at her, malevolently. She lets It in. It tells her that It is her friend. She smiles, although she does not believe It. She closes her eyes and reaches out. Soothe me, she says. Cleanse me, she says. The mask she placed over her eyes to keep out harm and danger is not working. ‘Tell me again those things you tell me when I need to hear them. I need to hear them. I need those words. Soothe me. Calm me. Hold me. Keep me safe. And for the first time, make me a child.’ But who listens? She is unbidden.

Imprisoned. Chained and shackled. Held down. Failure presses down and crushes her. She is a ship floundering on the sharp and spiky pointed rocks of disappointment. Her life. She looks around as It explores new ways to pile pain and misery upon a darkened and blackened soul. She is blinded and bound by her own inadequacies. They take physical form and dance and prance around her looking for ways to penetrate the blindfold. The blindfold that offers scant protection. She knows they are there and she keeps them at bay.

Who is She?

But sometimes they get through and then she is helpless, and lets them take her. There is no calm. Every waking hour she is vigilant and alert. Look at her as she looks. What do you see? What do you want to see?

She must be what she wants other people to see. This is what she wants? She was made. Created. Built over the years from the building bricks of life experience. Different hands placing each brick with care. One on top of another. Building. Always building. She remembers the feel of the sun on her face, but not so often now. Now, mostly, she craves the soothing salve that calms her, reassures her and tells her her worth. Immeasurable worth, but quantifiable when lost. Who is this? Who am I?