by Angela Zimmerman
Do you feel it?
That itch behind your eyes, right there in your cerebral cortex? The feeling that you’ve left a light on somewhere, even though you’re surrounded by darkness?
It’s a nostalgic urging clamouring for your attention. It’s a voice you remember but haven’t heard in a long time.
People say that we sleep for one-third of our lives. I think most of us have been sleeping a lot longer.
We were lured to sleep by people who wanted us to be quiet, to lay down. Not to dream, but to be silent and still.
They thought that our slumber would ensure their dominance. Their success was directly tied to how deeply our repose was.
They lulled us to sleep with their gospels. They kept us comatose with their threats of damnation.
We were taught to be afraid to be awake. We were sustained on a liquid diet of fear and guilt. We knew that ostracization was just a peek at the sun away.
We were taught the only way to see was to use their words as landscapes.
We slept the sleep of poppy fields and were none the wiser. We slept so hard and for so long we forgot what was before.We forgot who we were.
But for some of us, it was not a restful sleep. We tossed and turned and swam against the current of darkness.
Somehow we knew something was just not right about our forced slumber. Our handlers improprieties began to imprint on our feverish dreams. Unable to act, the itch started.
That itch? That thorn snagging on your subconscious? It’s your wake up call.
You’ve been constrained for so long that parts that were meant to move fluidly are now frozen solid.
Your ability to love, your ability for pleasure, every drop of your magic is there, waiting to be unfolded. Like a butterfly leaving it’s chrysalis, you have to rush blood to the parts of you that are longing to blossom.
You have to indulge these callings. To grow, you have to feed your desires.
And if you do that, if you stoke the fires that are hidden inside of you, for the first time in a very long time, you will be free. And that’s scary as hell.
Freedom doesn’t come easy. When you were asleep the world was easier.
The hard and scary things were hidden from you. But the lovely and rewarding things were hidden too. To enjoy them, you must accept the nasty parts.
To find the pearls, you have to crawl through the offal.
You will scream and you will cry. You will briefly wish you never woke up at all.
Using your forgotten wings will hurt. But when you feel the sky open to you and you lift off, all the pain and uncomfort of learning will be worth it.
When you feel the energy course through your body and the electricity spark from your fingers, you will know that this was what you were supposed to be doing all along.
Your eyes were full of sand, darling. You wiped them clean and now you can see. Crack your bones and step up. Slumber no more and join the story you belong in.
IN CONCLUSION
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