Changing

Someone told me that change comes from pain.

And I guess that’s why I’ve been butterflying it over the last few months

Molting who I’ve been

To just shed who I’ve become in a few weeks time.

Because the pain has been unbearable

Waves of scale of 1 to 10 it’s 25 pain.

But I can’t say that I didn’t like it.

Because these multiples of me

These photocopies of photocopies of photocopies

Have helped me shake it down to who I really am.

What it is to be me.

That’s not to say I enjoyed it.

I can’t say that all the wounds and the broken places felt nice.

No, no it hurt like hell.

Feeling my bones constantly rebroken

To take on some new shape.

But the change is settling down.

The woman I’ve become is nearer to who I want to be than I ever thought possible

So as the next few months fall off the calendar I hope I stay the same

And if Idon’t

If I am remolded for another time

I know she will only be a better version of me.

Because the last few months have been the most painful I can recall.

The most tear stained curled up sobbing months of my life.

But they’ve also been the most real.

These past few months have been the greatest and worst moments of my life

Stitched together like someones half blind grandmother was matching colors in the dark

But still making them a quilt filled with love.

Because that’s what I’ve learned most in the past few months.

Love.

My capacity to love is innumerable.

I have vast tanks underneathing this rib cage just waiting to be filled with love for other people.

But also the love of others.

Just because they don’t say it the same way

Doesn’t mean they don’t love you.

I am truly loved by an unbelievable amount of people

And I have seen that written across their faces in the last few months.

So if I change I hope they only love me for it.

But if they don’t

I will love them still the same.

Because love changes

Just like we do

But that doesn’t mean we have to lose it.

Just like I still have the fingertips of the girl I was last winter.

I still have her in the way I pronounce my r’s and how infrequently I do laundry.

She still has a home inside of me.

Just like they

Will always have a home in my heart.

 So the pain may come

As it has before.

And I may become a ship lost on the waters again

But when that happens

When I return from that sea a bearded sea captain with a peg leg

I hope they just smile

And say “We’ve missed you”

Because this boat was made for one

And I’m all alone on this sea

And that’s okay.

I just hope when I return

I remember who I loved.