Return to Sender: A Poem

I got lost in the mail. Drifted along with the minutia of details, stuck on how these things need to be, due to an upbringing tainted by emotional loss and vacancies.

Photo by Rinck Content Studio on Unsplash

Bring me back to the woman I set out to be.
To the purest form of love written about in love letters.
I got lost in the mail.
Drifted along with the minutia of details, 
stuck on how these things need to be,
due to an upbringing tainted by emotional loss and vacancies.

Returned to Sender.
I hold the old me in my arms and whisper into her heart:
“It’s okay to make mistakes.”
To explode sometimes and to break.
To not be strong all the time or fake
all the feelings that you feel.
All of the fear that bubbles up
due to old patterns that you fight to repress.
You suffocate as I lean into your ear and confess: 
you can’t live here anymore. 

I return to the bubble
and rock her inside as she weeps.
She acknowledges she has the past on repeat.
That she’s worried he’ll disappear,
that she’ll remain stuck where she is, 
right here.
This is no longer my story, I say.
So I push her outside of the bubble, package her up, and send her on her way.
Detaching myself from her emotional and mental clutches, 
she fights me every step of the way.

And I pray.

That she is delivered back to the past: its rightful owner.
That she won’t return again. 
Because if she ever tries 
to push her way back inside
I will force her out with my thoughts.
Remind myself that I am full of compassion and positivity. 
Vulnerability. 
Because there is always a possibility. 
To be happy. 
To love and lust simultaneously. 
To go back to the woman I used to be.
The woman that stared at herself in the mirror 
and promised to do this differently,
right before jumping into your warm and strong embrace,
and I caught that tender look on your face,
when you smiled at me while we drove down Sunrise Highway,
when you told me you are so drawn to me,
when you leaned in and kissed my shoulders and lips 
when we realized these are changing times and we jucouldn't resist:
The bubble. 
The energy. 
The heat. 
The feelings that I feel when I think of you and me, 
when I remember who we used to be.