It Was A Great Escape For Me

My Mother, Abra, Had Taught Me That All People Are Made From The Same Dust. When Our Days Here Are Gone, All Men And Women Enter The Same Garden.

And Then I Understood That She Had No Idea What She'd Done To My Family. She Thought Love And Hatred Were Equal.

If Every Life Is A River, Then It's Little Wonder That We Do Not Even Notice The Changes That Occur Until We Are Far Out In The Darkest Sea. One Day You Look Around And Nothing Is Familiar, Not Even Your Own Face. My Name Once Meant Daughter, Grandaughter, Friend, Sister, Beloved. Now Those Words Mean Only What Their Letters Spell Out; Star In The Night Sky. Truth In The Darkness. I Have Crossed Over To A Place Where I Never Thought I'd Be. I Am Someone I Would Have Never Imagined. A Secret. A Dream. I Am This, Body And Soul. Burn Me. Drown Me. Tell Me Lies. I Will Still Be Who I Am.

I Thought Of The Bowl Of Water My Mother Taught Me To Look Into. It Was True, Everything A Person Ever Needed To Know Was Right There In A Single Bowl Small Enough To Fit In The Palm Of One Hand.

People Hide Their Truest Nature. I Understood That; I Even Applauded It. What Sort Of World Would It Be If People Bled All Over The Sidewalks, If They Wept Under Trees, Smacked Whomever They Despised, Kissed Strangers, Revealed Themselves?