For so long.

For so long.

         For so long, all I knew was darkness. All I knew was that dense, sluggish fog that bound me so tightly I could scarcely remember the person I once was. Like cold steel shackles who's burden was the only sensation that reminded me that I was still alive. If you could consider that existence actually being alive.
         I was so weak for so long. So long, that I feared I would be lost to that weakness for the rest of my life. Such a horrible feeling that was. It's that feeling of emptiness, nothingness, that painful tightening in your chest, that burn in your throat. As if your body wants to break into sobs, but no tears come. Instead you sit there in silence, while within your mind your screams of agony echo into that dark abyss, and it simply takes those cries and devours them, feeds off them, and then mocks you in its continued silence. How I wished, so many times, for tears to run and take with them in their release, even just a single ounce of the pain that tore the rip in my heart wider with each passing day. It took so long for me to realize: This is not Life.
         For so long, I waited. Hoping, preying, wishing... begging for some sort of sign. A whisper on the faintly sighing winds that I was to be free. Free at last to breath, to truly know what it was to be alive. To look to the star-stippled skies and find comfort in the silent night once more.
         Change was so sudden I could hardly grasp it as it happened. What at first appeared to be yet another cruel blade making its way towards my soul in hopes of cutting out a path for another scar, instead ran its razors' edge delicately along the cords that secured me so mercilessly to my ill begotten situation. Slowly loosening the vices and revealing the tiny rays of light in the endless dark. Allowing me to draw upon the long forgotten fire that once fueled me so fiercely, giving me the opportunity I had been waiting for for so long; to pull myself together and once and for all sever the ties that bound me.
         I am truly thankful to once again be free to shine as I once did, perhaps now even brighter than before. Now that the spark within my soul is free to drink in the nights quiet air, I feel it has blossomed into what will soon be an eternal flame, burning strong and hot, impervious to the elements that may yet try to contain and extinguish it. For so long, all I knew was darkness. Now, I create my own light to guide me on the path I walk.