The hard season

The hard season is upon me.
I am split through.
I bleed water.
I cough and cough and cough up the smoke from the deaths I have kept within me.
Who knew bitterness felt so much like grief?
Who knew healing felt so much like grief?
Who knew truth felt so much like grief?
Oh Nayyirah, when will this end?

I am meeting myself for the first time in my entire life, unmasked and weaponless.
Ten years of swallowing my very self and folding my anguish into smaller and smaller pieces have caught up with me.
I am grieving and heartbroken all over again.

But I keep my promise.
I extend a hand to myself.

I will keep coaxing the truths from their hiding places.
I will keep spilling pain like tears.
I will keep opening up spaces for myself.

The soft season will come.
For I see glimpses of it already.