This is not
an endurance event.
This is an
unraveling, gorgeous
sweaty adventure.

If it feels like hell —
with no purpose —
then stop.
Stop.

Feel into your heart,
drop down to your knees,
learn to pray
your way.
Listen to what your soul
can hear and your head insists
you do not.
Listen and stop denying what you
knew before they told you
what to think, how to feel,
who to be.
Listen.
Ask questions,
give no answers.

Stop indulging the fantasy
that misery — or some half-life
is your destiny,
your penance,
your humble inheritance.
It is
not.
It is the path
of culture-bound fears.

Your unruly courage
asks you to make love
with your own heart.
To take — like a lover —
your inheritance
is to claim
what makes your soul
warm and runny,
what makes your heart drip
with desire to thrive,
what opens your psyche,
your body to ecstatic states,
what beckons you to inhabit
wild artistry —
artistry enough
to kiss alive
the gifts they told you
to stuff away.
These are the gifts you carry.
Like a mother carries child.

The timing is ripe,
the opening invites
birth now.

Your soul will catch you,
Baby,
when you
fall.

            Melissa La Flamme