Trail of Tears

The souls of those we have loved and lost or left follows us. Through past pain and purposeful soul isolation we hid. In our hiding place we found love. We invited that one person into our hiding place, and together we soared until social constructs invaded that secret space, and we were forced to live our lies. Our love, our pure, beautiful love, was splintered like a fractured mirror in that brutal outside place. Our love could not thrive there in the vicious wind of social norms. So in our fear, in our anguish, in our hatred of ourselves, one of us fled, and one of us was left behind. Part of us lived in our own secret hiding place, the other part of us in that brutal outside world. We wore our masks while the inside of us achingly reached for someone to love, which could only exist in our hiding place. We would slowly, oh so slowly, let another in so we could be sure they wanted our love too-our true, pure love, and the cycle would continue. Our hearts would break time and time again because like flowers we cannot thrive in that darkness. So when that brutal outside world would tear open the door of our pure love and force us out into that searing heat of societal pressures to be "normal" we would go. We would hate ourselves for finding true love. We would try to fit into what was expected of us and in the process hurt others because we could not love them in return. We could not be ourselves, so others would fall in love with our mask while our hearts wilted because we could not love the one love brought our way. If only society would release us of those expectations, and let us love freely, there would not be such a vast trail of tears.