Umbilical Cord

The first sounds you heard, the first music, the first voice, was mine.  I was the composer and arranger of your initial entrance into this universe.  The cocoon that held you, bathed you, cradled and nurtured you were of my design.  As flawed as it was, it loved you, my precious pearl.  I worshipped you, my unknown living creature, for no reason and for every reason.

The guilt and pain for you is fresh, uncontained, unimagined, unexpressed.  It is slowly unraveling itself, weaving its snake-like tendrils into every crack and crevice of my being, like Medusa.  Each snake is alive, pulsating, hissing, leaving entrails of guilt, horror, disgust and disdain, all lopped together, festering deep within.

How do I contain it and not let it touch you, my sweet baby?  You, who have been ravaged before your understanding of life was complete; you, who need protection and soothing, who harbors a darkness that is not yours.  It was an unwanted “gift”, no more of your sweet precious gift of innocence, torn from your flesh, left bleeding from secret wounds, invisible blood, a blood letting you endured in silence, your own private hell.

I didn’t know.  I search and search for the clues I missed.  Did you try to tell me, your failed protector, and I missed them?  What are the clues anyway?   I saved you from my own demons; a sigh of relief knowing they could not touch you.  But one slipped past as I carefully crafted the protective covering that was supposed to keep you safe.  A monster, known and nearby, snuck under the steel fences and came right through the front door, masked as friend, and battled with you in our front room, not once, not twice, leaving you with your own demons to fight for years to come.

And I hurt, knowing the pain of living with demons for a lifetime.  That was my destiny.  It was not yours.  And yet it is yours.  Now.  My own monsters laugh with glee at the pain that creeps up from the basement of me where the memories are vaulted.  I am familiar, yet unfamiliar with the stings of my past revisited.  Is it this? Is it that?  Are they yours?  Is it mine?

I am here.  I always have been.  We have a common thread of demons that now run through us, attaches us, a new kind of umbilical cord.  This one I cannot sever.  It will nourish and heal you.  It is our lifeline.  Once again I feed you, sustain you as you make your way into this world again, the second time, a man before you were able, your two souls that will heal into one.