shame

in , , ,

Kickqueen Workshop with Ghinwa Yassine_12122020

shame! it burns

there is pain, but it also feels good

a pulsing. it catches in my breath and I am frozen

tense and bound

my insides cry. they beg. they burn

it’s so familiar. sometimes it is home.

I don’t want to live here though. Let me go!

How do I let go?

I didn’t know any better. Do I now? I think I’m supposed to…

there is so much I’m responsible for

and yet I forget about me. I’ve bound myself so tight

with the disappointments, failures and expectations of others.

I don’t know where I exist without shame

I cannot or do not know how to be

How to be me in the presence of the blood from which I came

my shame is her shame. she didn’t know how to hold it healthily.
How to let it go without drowning herself or others in it

so she gave it to me and I didn’t know any better

shame shared is not shame halved. It multiplies. Buried shame breeds, infects the next

I don’t want this

I move so much to escape and yet

I do not move at all.

I sit in shame but I don’t know how to own it. How to free myself

from it’s heavy burning binds.

My insides are screaming now

***

it’s mid afternoon

on Larrakia Land

my childhood home

I’m looking out my bedroom window. out onto the pavement
below the frangipani trees.

This gesture in my thighs moves my hips ever so slightly.

There are people

they are watching me. They sway like me. I am not alone

they tell me , not with words, that I am safe.

I needn’t build my home here. This is not who I am

just a series of experiences that have come to pass.

I can let them go & know that I am not alone. I am loved and in the company of others who understand

There is no forgiving here. There is nothing to forgive. Just this gesture. In this moment & I can be in THIS moment

I can also leave

I needn’t build my home here.

I feel free

I can breath

unclench my jaw
and my fists

The burning leaves me. The feeling is gone. The binds release themselves and all that remains is the gesture

it is hollow but not empty

it reminds me that movement is freeing

That I needn’t build my home here.