Afraid to reveal your humanity,
you held it close,
protected your heart,
hiding your truth.

Or so you thought.

Instead, you spread your traumas,
your insidious anxieties,
and lack of self-worth on every surface.

Flowing like Vesuvius,
and sticking like peanut butter,
your anguish and torture,
gummed up the works.

For you. For those around you.

It must have been exhausting,
trying to push the boiling lava back up the mountain.
It was exhausting for us, too;
when you mistook the flowing rivers of our lives for your trauma.

We loved you all the same and ached for you.

But you were certain your pain was hidden,
and that we couldn’t love unless you hid.
You feared that our cups of fresh water love,
were as bitter as the lava flows of trauma.

Your agony and grief-fueled transgressions,
knocked the flowing river off course.
Yet, I still ache for you and your pain.

You are worthy and beloved,
but I confess my hurt, bitterness,
and anger dissipate slowly
even as I find delight along a new tributary.

Your pain, shared.