Helen Cottee
free, in fact
It’s a curious position
To be in when you suddenly
Find yourself detached enough
To discover
You are not trying to prove yourself
To anyone, through anything.
To suddenly discover
You are not your work
Or your relationships
Or your reputation.
To realise all the months of loss
Was the necessary pain
Of tethers being severed
Between your Self
And the things it thought it needed
In order to be a someone.
That you would never
have chosen the pain
But that on the other side
You would choose the freedom
That pain bought you
Every split second of every day.
To suddenly discover
The striving can stop
And that you are,
in fact,
free.
