Languages of Change

Featured Illustration: Sage Barnes

This is the summer

We blossomed into being

We stepped inside of ourselves

Into the discomfort

Of our own minds

Of our shared spaces

That shape our lives

We learned to make choices

For healing (us)

For nurturing (us)

For surviving. 

All the people inside of us

Meet us more often now

We learned to greet them

A little more kindly.

About time.

We have been living in the same house

And it is about time

Our incongruity stopped scratching our skin 

From the inside

Making us bleed

Water.

Blood.

Flowers.

Dust.

We stopped explaining ourselves

We haven’t stopped the apologies.

But that has changed.

We say “I’m sorry” not (always) because we must.

We say “I’m sorry” because we have learned

That we are larger than the mistakes we made.

We have always been.

Some remain small all their lives.

Some remain smaller than all that they are.

But we

We (us)

We have blossomed into being.