The pain I’ve collected throughout my life has shaped me as a person, a thing, a being with a higher level of consciousness. The hurt and the suffering left scars embedded on my soul; it’s left its silvery thin lines glistening on my skin and it’s left its memory in my heart.
For an eternity…
How do you love another when you can barely look at yourself in the mirror? When your reflection pains you? No one can love you, no one can find the beauty that resides inside because there is no beauty left.
Not in you.
The day comes when you feel old and withered like a tree that has lost its luster. Branches that are broken and torn up. An ugly monstrosity that everyone wants gone.
All they want is beauty; to marvel at a creation that can take their breathe away.
You become harder in an effort to not seem weak. But the reality is, the harder your shell becomes, the easier you are to break.
Until one day someone comes across this gnarly, old twisted thing. But instead of being disturbed by the obvious ugliness, they see something that has lived. Something that gave life to others, something that was once beautiful but was simply forgotten.
So they run their hand along the body of the tree and don’t feel a hardness unworthy of their love and their care.
When he brushed her hair behind her ear and ran his finger along her collarbone, she felt something stir inside. When he lifted her chin up and brushed his lips against hers, she felt warmth.
And so did he.
He watered the roots of the battered old tree until he began to see it spring back to life. Until he began to see it blossom. He watched with a child-like wonder.
He brought it back to life. He watched others stop and admire her beauty.
When his job was done he smiled and walked away.
He left her with her beauty, his gift to her.
The tree attracted others that used it to shelter them. To draw strength from it. That loved it while it was big, strong and beautiful.
But without him, it began to die again. Nobody else was loving it; they only used it but gave nothing back.
Without him she was nothing.
Without him there was no need to live.
And in sorrow she was gone.
Nothingness.
And he smiles at the memory of the beautiful tree he brought back to life that gave him the oxygen to breathe again. It allowed him to remember that there was good in him and that he had loved something enough to bring it back from the dead.
Many years later, he went back to the tree that he left behind.
It was gone.
Without his love it had withered and died. He sat down next to what was left and held a small piece next to his heart.
The memory of fingers running along her collarbone made his heart heavy with a burden he would never let go off.
They had loved each other.
Gave each other life.
But when separated they both began to fade.
***
***Dee Lean believes that a writer that doesn’t write is like a soul without a mate; aimlessly wondering without a purpose. Born in Belfast, Ireland, Lean currently lives in Melbourne, Australia and is a single mother to two gorgeous kids that get her up and inspire her to see and seek the good in all. When people ask her what she does, she simply says, “I write.” Lean is now a regular contributor at Sick Lit Magazine. She tweets at: https://twitter.com/Dede18 ***
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