Sometimes the things we think we’ve killed and buried are still very much alive. How those terrible things can rise from their poorly dug graves when we don’t properly lay them to rest. How they take, and they take, until we make it right; for the living are the envy of all the dead.
They rose from the mud, mangled, ugly, and unloved. They reached out with longing limbs, and I burned every one of them that dared to touch me. Only after staring at my own singed flesh did I see that the only thing I was killing—was me.
So I went down. Way, way down to that great graveyard within myself, and finally let the dead have their say. They showed me the path I sought was always the path I’d avoided. That way meant going back, and I had come so far from that awful place. Together we traced the fractures back to their foundation, and gazed upon all I had refused to see. Staring at the epicenter of every tremor in my life that caused the earth to open up to swallow me, I did not blink.
As I smiled back into the abyss of that malicious maw, I learned that bravery is not defined by the absence of weakness; but measured in how many paces we move forward when we are at our weakest. Step by fumbled step, I walked weakly into its jaws. For the only way out is through.
The dead are all sleeping now, having finally completed their great work. I couldn’t tell you if that rest is forever, but you’ve seen what happens to people who get used to the ghosts.
We are, all of us, haunted. We must, all of us, be brave.
– I G