For some, scars create a kind of speed: a race, breakneck, towards any future. Running becomes escapism, and escapism is what passes for life. This is the life of the ghost. When your every thought is denied, and when your voice goes unheard, a ghost is exactly what you become. More, it is all that you are to the people who claim to love you.

I know. Believe me, I know all too well. I’ve lived as that ghost for most of my life. Sometimes, that silence is the only voice I feel I have left. My spine deserts me when I need it most – too easily frightened, too easily shocked, too damaged.
Everything becomes that “too.”

Despite it, I can feel something simmering within me, ready to reach that full boil. I don’t know if I should be relieved. If I should feel that “finally” sense of relief that is almost exhilaration. It’s like another cancer is about to be cut out of me, only this time from my soul and my psyche and my identity.

I know I’ve broken through that in so many ways already. I know that there are times when I am real. I’ve learned what it is to be visible. At first, all I wanted was to hide away from it. So much safer to remain a part of the scenery. Yet there is also something hopeful, something that demands to be seen, inside of me.