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.
