Therapy Part 3 Toward a Breakthrough

The question opens something

Not wide

Not clean

But enough for a thin breath of light

To slip through the seam

I sit with it

Feeling the shift

The slow reluctant give

Of a door that’s been locked

For years

The therapist waits

Still as a held note

Letting the silence

Do its quiet work

Inside me

A memory rises

Blurred at the edges

Cold around the center

But unmistakably mine

My throat tightens

My pulse stumbles

But this time

I don’t retreat

I let the ache surface

I let the truth

Inch forward

Fragile as a flame

In a draft

The first words

Scrape their way out

Not polished

Not complete

But real

I think

I think I’ve been hiding

For longer than I want to admit

The room doesn’t collapse

The world doesn’t end

Only the smallest part of me

Finally exhales

And in that breath

In that trembling release

I hear myself

Fully

Honestly

For the first time in years

My name is Anthony

And 

I'm ready for part 4

New Beginnings