This post is part of a series called 100 Days of Poetry.

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you’re in the part of healing before you limbs fall off. talking about how what you went through doesn’t make you a victim, but a warrior and I want to sit you down, touch your knee. I’d offer you a cup of tea and a blanket before serving the hot truth on a cold tray of this is happening and you’ll stare into your cup and watch the steam rise while something inside of you notices at that very moment how your hands just fall to the floor. Nothing is holding them to you anymore, the grief took over and you let everything else go.

it’s not that you are not a warrior, or that you stay a victim. It’s that you don’t understand, yet, how powerful your own adversity is for you. The lack of hands will be a hurdle to overcome, daily. You’ll be reminded with every single task how this was muscle memory, you never had to think about how to open a door before: as if it was possessed by your own magic will.

you’re crying, the warrior you pictured now has no hands. how are you supposed to slay everyone else’s expectations of your tragedy without any goddamn hands?

easy, I tell you. 

you use your heart.