The Light Within

Raina tucked the spines of her lovers in the spines of her journals because they were too spineless to love her. She releases her vitality upon the lines of paper that only have the strength to withhold the affray within her core. The agony is unabated. It reminds her of the earthquakes, one calls legs, she tries to stand on. It reminds her that once again someone could not stay. She is reminded that is just a home for lost souls who need light. On her hips she balanced the weight of immature men, who were too lazy to love her correctly or too dumb to see her majesty. Her hands riddled with calluses of dried smiles gone often too soon. Every backache can be traced from her helping someone else up. Every spot on her arms is from a pop of grease from feeding a body that is alive but still sheep. Every wrinkle is proof that wisdom comes with time.

“Maybe I’m the problem”, she whispers to herself in the darkness of her room. In the same bed that she wants to escape. Her skin feels like it will disintegrate at any second. There are clothes that should have been washed weeks ago on her floor. She wants to leave but where do you go when only the loneliness seems like home? Why is this ache so familiar yet so stifling? The only consistency Raina can depend on is heartbreak and misery. Her lover was going to leave, they all do. They love to bury their dreams in the creases of her jeans, leave stains of their guilt on her skin, feast on her fragility and leave when they’ve had their fill. They whisper sweet nothings into her ears until her heart decays into the cavity of her chest. Even when a voice deep inside her told her each was temporary, she ignored her soul like it was the enemy. Grief was soothing because it kept each of them here. If she was to move on, they could too and then it would be like they never existed. She feared oblivion. If no one loved her, where would all this love inside her go. She had to hope because acceptance would tell her that she was used to dump their regrets, daddy issues, dissonance, and lack of discipline. That her body was a resting stop until they found someone they actually wanted to be with.  Every time it started the same way and ended with of an ensemble of cliques tormenting her sanity.

“I found comfort in hands that rejected the bible but loved to read me”, Raina wrote in her journal under the heaviness of grief. Those lovers wanted redemption because she lacked discernment.  Her mystery made them intrigued. Her presence was their therapy. She mended more men with the gentleness of her essence, syrup of her words, and heat of her body than a hospital room has ever seen. She took on the most hopeless of cases, dawned her rays upon the crevices of their secrets, bathed in the parts of them that no one understood, and feed the hungriest hearts with patience and honey. Where each heart lay dormant, she erupted it. As payment, they took her isolation and used it as prey. Instead of loving her, they took one look at their mended wounds and mistook her bandages as miasma. Her presence was a temple where rich men came to be humbled and blind men came to see. Even the devil himself wanted to know how source could thrive in this tragedy. Maybe they knew they never deserved such intimacy, so they decided that sabotage was only fitting. They had used her hymen as a place to for their own self-hate to lie in. Now that she had shown them how unconditional love could live in a place where rats came to feed, then they would also have to admit that they too were parasites. So they choose lovers who are not as picky, less demanding, and give love a spin for thrills rather than eternity. Even the hottest of love affairs can have the coldest ends. Those who came for baptism, still can commit sin. Even the deepest of connections can leave the innocent victim’s body riddled without satisfaction.

Raina always seemed to rise. It was as if her ancestors would not let her die. Her father named her Raina which meant queen. She was meant to reign; it was her destiny. She always healed. Somehow, she found beauty in even the small things. Like the marigold flower on the cover of her journal. Each lover gave her pain, and she found her pen. Her words could mend the wounded wings of her heart, breath oxygen into the lungs once more, and move the diseased tips of her disabled legs of her core. She could revive humility in the most selfish of rooms, where even beggars did not roam. There was something different about this Raina and deep down she knew. There had to be more to this life than just trauma and gloom. There was more to purpose than how much money and food one could consume. The ultimate purpose of life could all be traced back to one entity and truth. When one seeks gold, they look outwards. When one feels pain, we choose anything that will keep us chemically induced. When one needs heaven, we fall to our knees. Yet the wisest know that infinity is already within. Raina knew that all this was divine decree. One day her husband will whisper in her ear, “How did you know that I was the one? When all those well-dressed buffoons came to your fortress, begging for love when they had nothing to offer for your hand in marriage?” In that moment, Raina will smile, curl deeper into his chest and coo, “I never knew, I just gave into all possibilities because I could never take love for granted, even when the pain followed”. For without rain, there would be no flowers.