I realized tonight that I’m not real to you. 

You come to me and it’s like you step entirely out of your world and into mine and I become your sanctuary.

And I want to be that for you.

But I also know that something that lives in your mind as undefinable as I do, well, it’s like visiting a dream. In that world, I will remain as I am forever.

But I am real. And I can’t stay the same always.

But to conceptualize that for you would mean you’d have to make a decision. You aren’t near making a decision and if you keep me in this bubble, you never will be.

I hope I can be okay with this.

But, you still are the best thing that has ever happened to me, at a point where all the culmination of my past experiences could have only led to the goodness that this is. You are coaxing me back into my body and reminding me every moment that I am safe. That I have a voice, and am powerful.

The teaching girls receive when they come of age is that this is yours, he said, gesturing to my body. You get to decide, always, whether and when you want to share it. No one else has any say in that but you.

I felt the press of tears that still refuse to fall.

I wish I’d had that teaching when I was young. I was never given it.

-Kiizhikehn