Embracing the Abyss

A poetic journey of generational trauma, self expression, and healing

I’m glad I was forced out of spaces that didn’t see my soul. As much as it hurt, at least now I know, there’s just some things we have to face on this earth alone. It feels like since birth I’ve been walking alone— with no real place to call my home. From a young age I learned to alchemize that pain.

To my ancestors, I was their rainbow after the rain.

Still—all those centuries of chaos I inherited, permanently changed my brain. I knew I was different, but as a kid, they just called me gifted. Anyone could do what I do, I wasn’t special, just driven. Neurodivergence often goes missing when you look like me. I was nearly 30 when I discovered I was undiagnosed AuDHD.

Still I achieved dreams that those around me said couldn’t be. I’ve sailed oceans farther out than I can see… All that running to reach safety from my past…

but those shadows still caught up to me.

My soul was paying the price for centuries of abuse my ancestors went through. I was the first generation to even be allowed to do all I sought out to. From enslavement, to sharecropping– I was the first to truly be free… or so it seemed.

I tried not to feel those cranes in the sky, kept pushing on and numbing to stay alive… Until one day, those cranes knocked me right out of the sky. My wings severed, and I could no longer fly. The wells of my poetic practice ran dry, my soul once rich, couldn’t sing— only cry. I screamed for help & no one cared or asked me why. Mentors, doctors, therapists, family, & friends all watched me fall from the sky.

They didn’t see my pain as valid, no matter how much I over shared or over explained. “Others have it worse,” they’d say. How can someone say they care about me and my dreams and dismiss me this way? I was drowning in the abyss of choices I didn’t make, unable to navigate without a compass– I was bound to break. I didn’t know how much more I could take…

I wish I knew then what I know today:

For some, it’s easier to avoid pain, than it is to sit with you in the rain. It’s not their fault– it’s just their brain protecting their psyche from what doesn’t feel safe. The reflection of your storm, reminds them of the pain they run from to this day.

Sometimes people have got too much to lose to slow down to feel & face it all like I do. In this case, it was a privilege for me to lose. The fall was proof of my flight, and how the darkness surrounding me was illuminated by my light.

I remember Baldwin said “Everyone that you look at is also you.” Then I realized, excellence doesn’t erase the past and no amount of success or wealth can heal wounds. Maybe I’m suffering from a life in poverty that I didn’t choose, but I’m the only one who can heal these wounds & set my soul loose.

I ache & mourn the life I could have made, but I think it’s better this way. The cycle of running away ended with me the day I spoke up for what I believed & watched my dreams get taken away. I watched the illusion of freedom fade away that day.

I saw the same evils that haunted my ancestors, still roamed this earth: taking land, life, and freedom away- not just here in the USA, but from the entire human race. The American dream I was living, wasn’t what it seemed, but it’s up to you and me to define a new dream: One that faces its scars and listens to those who still scream.

It’s time we stop running & let the soul of this country bleed.

Maybe then we’ll see our beauty truly is skin deep…. That we’re more alike than you may think… we all look the same as we bleed.

Imagine what we can do if we heal & center love over self. What will it take to get there, and who can help? That question is the soul of my new dream, even if that means I’ll never get back out there to explore the seas.

All I could ever need is right here inside of me.

Song: Spotless Mind - Jhené Aiko