Cold, black, anguish, loneliness, anxiety, entangled, imprisoned, afraid, fumbling, death, lost, hopeless, weak. Forever. Eyes closed, stumbling over every block. Every fear. Every hurt. Every trauma. Lost. Never to be found. Eyes shut so tight I see stars. I am cold. The chill is bitter and it’s freezing every bone in my body. Will I survive? I can’t open my eyes. I can’t. Even if I could it’s so dark I will never be able to see. There is nothing to light the way. I feel paralyzed and yet I move. Stumbling, falling, crawling. Like my knees, my heart is bruised, bleeding and wounded. I wear a mask made up of false securities. I keep my eyes closed. Don’t look. There is nothing to see anyways. Panic sets in. How will I find my way through? It’s impossible. I can’t do it. The fear is holding me hostage. The only thing more daunting than leaving is remaining. It’s unbearable. The darkness is swallowing me. I can feel it pulling me under like a forceful current into the dark abyss. One finger. Place one finger on the ground. I feel the ground. It’s so cold. Another finger. One hand. The other. The ground is getting warmer. I can’t see, but I can feel! I can feel my way through. It’s the only way. I pull myself up. My feet are now touching the ground. My legs, a gelatinous substance, miraculously keep me steady. I still can’t see. I reach my hand out and feel giant walls built around me. The walls are rough and riddled with cracks. I handle them ever so carefully. As I tenderly move my hands over the wreckage these walls consist of I realize I can use them as a map of sorts. With eyes closed, I allow these walls to guide me through and forward. It’s getting warmer. I touch the ground with my calloused hands. There are deep grooves here also. They too are charting the way for me. As I continue feeling my way through the darkness I find my bearings. I feel warm. My body is warm all over. It hurts to keep my eyes shut. I’m so afraid to open them. The darkness just might swallow me whole. I have allowed intuition to guide my way through thus far and I find myself on steady ground. I trust these thoughts. I open one eye. Two. I am swallowed whole! It’s warm. It’s bright! My eyes adjust. It’s light! Everything is so clear. My path behind me, before me and ahead of me has been illuminated right before my wide open eyes. I look around and take it all in. The hurt, the pain, the trauma. They safely guided me to this place of warmth. When I couldn’t see the way, I felt my way through. I felt it all. As the feelings flowed through me and out of they propelled me to this beautiful, breathtaking light. The light flowed through my wounds. My heart. It’s open. It’s healing. It is full of light. Warm, gold, happiness, jubilation, peace, life, free, confident, strong, grounded, hopeful. Always. As I stood in the sun I realized that just as these attributes have always been who I am, so has the light. All I had to do was open my eyes. The eyes to my heart. It was in my darkness that I found my light. Only to remember that I was never lost and neither was my light.