i traded my shackles for a gold bracelet

i am pensive today, as i tend to be on most days

i buy a 10k gold bracelet at the thrift shop today

it is dainty and lined with small emeralds

i pay $35 for it, a gift to myself

why?

because, i wrote out all those feelings

you know, the ones i never spoke

the things i left unsaid

and i said them, finally

i hit publish on the blog

and i felt free

fuck, finally someone else can read this shit and carry it for a while

this isn’t mine anymore, i’m not carrying this around

i’m not your pack horse anymore

so here’s the truth, because i lived it

i’m tired of living it

a woman stops to admire me trying on the bracelet

or she’s admiring the bracelet, i can’t tell

she stops to say, “it looks beautiful on you“

and i’ve been thinking about difficult feelings and poison

and i’ve been thinking about shackles, because my therapist said the baggage we carry, each piece

is a shackle, an anchor, a weighted disc

they need not be large because ounces make pounds

and with all the anchors sewed into the hem of my skirts

throw me in the water like a witch in the old days and i would sink sink sink

but i won’t sink, no

not now, not anymore

i crawled my way out of it all

i crawled my way out of sweatlodge

in that filthy dress with my eyes stinging, blind

with my lungs full of sage and sweetgrass

and lo i was born again on the ground from which i came

the womb of my earthly mother

and the elders with their knowing eyes watched me crash out in the creek

floating face up as the july sun burned above me

sitting in the creek, i watched the wild horses

“some real sacred shit” one of the girls from sweatlodge said

she was broken like me, seeking like me

and with filthy hands we ate strawberries and laughed

as we buried our old selves that day, as babies born anew

back in the thrift store with its flourescent light

and funky smell

and christmas carols

i say to the woman complimenting the gold and the emeralds,

“thank you, i know“

i remove my shackles and put them in the thrift store donation bin

for someone else to wear

because i don’t need them anymore

i put on the gold bracelet in my car in the parking lot

and i feel better

when i exhale the see my breath before me

as it fogs up the rearview mirror

i can smell sage and sweetgrass

and i sing the whole way home