There are parts of me that your abuse did not touch.

There are unbroken meadows, pristine peaks, and lush valleys with ferns that hang heavy, soaked with fresh droplets of rain that illuminate in the warmth of the liquid gold sun.

There is renewal.

And yes, there are cracks that exist simultaneously.

There is pain that underlies pain; there is an ache that still throbs every now and then—when my mind wanders, and the tears sting, and I remember what it was like to be close to you.

The closest thing to hell I have ever felt.

But what I need to know right now, is this—

There are places within me

So sacred

So pure

So vibrant

That nothing can ever reach or ruin them.

No poison words or lies

Manipulations

Or threats

This is my unruined garden.

There are lush roses that lace the air with sweetness.

There are fields rich with lavender that dance in the breeze and perfume my entire body with a light herbaceous scent as they move delicately against me.

Yes.

There are these vast, unruined gardens inside me.

They are expansive and endless.

They want for nothing.

They were somehow tended to the whole time—

Unknowingly.

By me

By hope

By fear

By love

By barely holding on

By all the toxicity that became the most beautiful sh*t

To fertilize

And make these roses so damn sweet.

As I weave through this inner landscape, a deep tenderness flows from secret vines and veins—

It gives way to peace.

The fact that I could feel so peaceful, now

After everything.

The fact that my peace, my spirit, my passion, my thirst for life—

It

Can’t

Die.

Even though I felt scraped up, worthless, bloody, dizzy, and confused from all the mind games and cleverly concealed bullsh*t—

Beauty remains.

Beauty never left.

This is my unruined garden.

You can’t have it.

You can’t hurt it.

You can’t crumple it.

Nothing can.

It is mine.

Forever untarnished

Forever untamed

This is my song, my call, my resiliency.

This is my fire.

It is where my spirit crackles with passion, where my creativity erupts and boils over into lava that leaks onto the page, with purpose so hot I fear I’ll melt the computer keys.

There are cracks inside me, yes—I’ll be honest about that.

Anyone would feel raw and exhausted after what I’ve known.

But I am not broken.

And yes, I have to remind myself of this when my lungs singe with panic—when all the heavy, metallic memories and smoke fill my mind with the twisted things you did to me.

But as for me—

I am not broken, after all.

All that you thought was weakness is actually my power.

Nothing can ruin me.

I gush with purpose and fluidity.

I burn with the determination of a falcon diving beside a 50-foot waterfall.

I am not stoppable, as it turns out—

I am the force that keeps going, always—when it’s cold and dark, when it’s treacherous and uncertain and the light seems just about to be snuffed out.

I didn’t let it. And I never will.

I am not broken, as it turns out.

I am regenerative, pure, able to grow back strong, wilder, riper, louder.

I only get better and bolder.

I will always rise again.

I am the day.

I am the light cracking through the mountaintops first thing in the morning.

There is pain, yes—

It lingers, it heals at its own pace—and that’s okay.

But I am not broken, and you did not break me.

In this moment, I know the truth.

The truth that resides inside every woman…

I

Am

Glorious.

No matter the traumas that have touched me,

I am still me, still here, still whole, still soft, still wild, and unruly as f*ck.

This is what I know.

Resin flows from my wounds; it drips with the songs and screams that become this poetry—

This untapped expression that grows and glows and widens into a net big enough to cast the entire planet.

This is my unruined garden.

My fingers dance in the light as I surface from the depths of the mud—and lilacs rain down in hues of amethyst and white.

This is my voice.

This is my truth.

Nothing can ever

Take

This

From

Me.

Not even you.

~

Relephant:

For the Women who Fear they are too Broken to be Loved.

~

Author: Sarah Harvey
Image: Pixabay 
Editor: Yoli Ramazzina
Copy editor: Sara Kärpänen