Former Self Poem by Kewayne Wadley

Once I hated you,
Without understanding the full reason of hating you.
For unexplainable reasons you were always there.
The very same shoulder I leaned my head against when stabbed.
My hate for you began when I looked down and found that it was your hand that held the knife that sunk into my stomach.
The shallow breathing,
The pain that surged through my very being.
Collapsing to the ground crying out for help.
Of all people, of all things.
You were the very least of anyone whom I would have thought.
Hearing your footsteps dissipate in the distance.
Scattering in every direction.
From that point on you showed me the meaning of silence.
The deafening moment of crying out for help only for no one to echo back to a throbbing pain.
Without understanding the full reason, I hated you.
This troubling silence that surrounded me.

Coming to the realization that at this very moment, everything was going to end.
Watching everything I once knew, everything I loved leak out of me.

I laid there soaked in attachment.
Growing numb, looking at the knife lay beside me motionless.
I hated you, but more so myself for handing you that very same knife.
The very same knife that ended up coming back sticking me in the stomach.
Once I hated you without understanding the reason why.
How could you do such a thing.
It wasn't until my head hit the ground that I laid there.

Forced to empty myself on cold pavement.
That I never hated you, for the pain that you thought you caused only made me realize how much strength I really had.

That letting go was essential to stop the suffering.

It wasn't until you stabbed me that I came to the agreement with my former self whom laid there bleeding out
That I never would have learned to see the beauty of everything around me if you never would have stabbed me.
Leaning to breathe again, leaving my former self behind