Here's To The Girl I Once Lived As And Love. Poem by Leah Ayliffe

On my own and sad again,
rain falls at the perfect hour
reflecting on the other side
the weather that storms within.
There is no formula or steps to retrace,
I could feel it building as the days passed. With each airplane I hear flying overhead, each crane operated machine building new doors in the city.

I wish to sit in it.
I want to soak in it.
In the gray sky, in the snowy day,
In the many pasts I have shed the skin to and stored far far away in memory.
It's a story I live over again on repeat.

Self-destruct button glittering just in reach, aligning gorgeously with the unfolding of nothing but wonderful opportunities at my feet.
A road paved gold and decisions come so easy I think of the witches of fate,
dreaming things like is this destiny or a fools game?

It was easy. Month after month, easy happiness and emotional rehab back in my hometown
with family and dear friends.
Forest walks and river days spent laughing.
It was easy and there was nothing much to think about.

Just as winter never stays,
Summer always ends.
I tried to stay strong and move forward past that line,
To open up that door to heaven.
But every time I try to move I hear a whisper somewhere deep and dark, urging me, pulling me, to come back.

"Is this what you want? Is this who you are? "
"Remember how you once loathed this way of life,
aren't you exhausted yet from being so different from that which you are? "

I've been avoiding this conversation for a while now. It is difficult to look in the mirror seeing someone better,
while somebody lesser lingers trying to scream through.
You see I never gave her the time, or so much as wrote a note, to let her know I fought wars to become somebody else. That she was no longer the whole of what I wanted to see in myself.
I've fought battles in my many worlded soul to create the throne made of lavender, and lily of the valley, I now sit and smile on.

And now I'm scared because I can feel her scratching through to the surface, and I'm scared because I don't know what she's going to do.
No.
I'm scared because I know her more than anyone, and I know exactly what she plans to do.
I can feel it in my bones, in the blood running through my veins.
I feel her tearing holes in my mind and slicing pieces of my heart just to make her way back in again.
Crippling the body so that all it can do is sleep
and dream those anxious dreams that wake the fragile body drenched in sweat.
Silence. Alone. Silence. Alone.
Rain.
Alone. Alone. Alone
The questions come as though they quietly crept under my closed door like a deadly gas to my thoughts.
"Is this the path you seek to walk? Are you ok that you find happiness in simple days? "
"Weren't you the one who always wanted to be on the run, lost in the mist of the unknown? "
"Who are you now? Who have you become? "

For minutes I couldn't breathe, I didn't cry, not a word.
I thought about that glittering button shining above me,
ready to grab that old familiar shovel and start digging the hole to make my new bed of self-pity.
Instead, I turned on the light.
The light.
Immediately the game had changed, my fear erased, and a boldness consumed the air that I breathe.
A snapshot of the strength that resides in this "new" me.
I looked straight into the mirror ready to fight, but found my heart go soft and melt with love.

"I'm ready to tell you, and I think you should know you're still here. Settle your doubts, little love of mine, be proud of the woman you've become. Let me show you how beautiful your world is just as it is. Let me show you just how much you have won"

Picked up a pen and started writing a letter to the girl I once lived as and loved.