SUNSHINE AURA – poetry. short stories. community.

I don’t know if I’m waiting for something to come to me, or if I’m waiting to go to something. Wilting in the sun, my skin wrinkling and burning, drying out of water to quench the heat. If only my brain would tell my feet to move — or is it my feet telling my brain they shall never leave? All the while, flashes and memories bang bang bang in my mind, like fireworks in a dusky early July night. Is there something I still need to get over? I just need to let it go? Am I dissociating from it all or just choosing comfort over the rugged trek awaiting me? I had courage once. It helped me survive. Yet now, I’m afraid of the tiniest toe dipped into the most innocent looking of ponds. Where did the courage go? Where did the passion run? Am I just blaming the outer world for hurting me too many times, or did I simply give up? I watch cycle after cycle of sun to moon. Interesting things happen some days. But most of the time they don’t. If I’m being honest, maybe I don’t know how to thrive without chaos. Maybe comfort and security, admiration and praise, feel too foreign after all the years of starving for these things. Maybe those of us who face betrayal at too young an age and defeat the greatest foe of our lives cannot function without an external force to conquer. Or maybe I’m just scared. Scared to actually have everything I fought so hard to obtain. Everything I still wish was mine. After going so long chasing the desire, it’s terrifying to know you’re so close to finally having it. Because once it’s yours, it could be lost. And once it’s yours, who will you become? Who will I be once I finally stop starving, when I’m completely full? Once the battle is won and the journey ends? I see victory on the horizon, yet I stay still, blistering in the heat and feet planted firm. It’s all just right over there, right within my grasp. Do I self-sabotage and retreat? Or do I rediscover my courage and take the last leg of the journey? Do I delete all these words, or do I write even more until a bridge has formed to take me onward? If I’m being honest, I want to claim it all. I want to face the fear and dive into the unknown, to feel my heart swell with the fear and excitement of beginning anew. I want to. I take a deep breath and, despite the tremors, I take the next step. I exhale and take another step. I tell myself I will do this over and over again until I reach the peak. The landscape around me transforms with every new force of movement, becoming and dismantling, until I no longer recognize anything anymore. The crippling fear returns and a part of me begs to stop, to stay still, to end the journey. But I dig deep into that part of myself, long dormant, the courageous and passionate fighter and I keep going. The wind picks up all around me and I begin to run. The world falls away in a cloud of rainbow kaleidoscopes and terrain so unusual and familiar all at the same time. And I don’t stop. I commit to completing what I started all those years ago. I let go of the panic and worry about losing it all again one day. I trust that I made it here and I can make it here again and again if I have to. I promise to be here fully and to honor what I came here to do, even when the emotions get heavy or the world scares me into the safety of a quiet, hidden room. I will forgive the past and what may come again in the future, knowing that imperfection is human. I may not know who I’ll be but I’ll stay honest in my heart and let light guide the way. And at last, I reach the peak. I see it all in a tiny pool of water, beckoning me to cup my hands around it and bring it to my lips for a cool, refreshing drink. And then, I do just that.