I come from…

Well, of course I come from my mother –

and a long line of mothers before her.  And that is what is obvious…  My mother and my mother’s mother, and her mother before, all quite skilled in the art of survival.  They survived cruelties, witnessed disgusting acts of hate and power – and, somehow still had dinner on the table promptly at 5.

They sacrificed their children on the altar of someone’s hunger, on the altar of making nice and looking pretty, and…were up at dawn preparing breakfast, headed to the fields.

I come from a long line of lies, broken hearts, and pretense – always, always pretense.  And, when it all became too much to bear, too much to hold together, I come from a long line of violence.

I come from my mother, who not being able to bear the pain and constant struggle of holding the façade in place, firmly powerfully in place, escaped through a tiny hole in her arm.

In her escaping she shifted the legacy, only perhaps even darker now than before.

I come from…

I come from a place inside myself that will not be denied.

Shrouded in cultural atrocity, presented as normal, passed off as appropriate… I come from a place inside myself that will not be denied.

A place of stars, a place of grace, of raging fires and ravaging storms… I come from a place inside myself that will not be denied.

A place of ubiquitous love, of grand creation, a place of interwoven mystery and cosmic unfolding….

I come from a place inside myself, that, though carefully walled in and dressed in the fabric of a culture that could care less, will not be denied.

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Originally written January 11, 2015.

Image credit: http://s357.photobucket.com/user/MangekyoChidori2089/media/monk22.jpg.html