Love Rewards The Brave by Anya Monroe Read Free Book Online Page B

fear
    inside.
    Still, I nod my head.

71.
     
    I watch as she reads the
    page pages.
    I don’t know what I should do.
    Leave her in quiet
    or interrupt her so it’s over
    or
    what?
    So I just pick at my black nail polish
    as little flecks
    land on the carpet.
     
    After awhile she stops.
     
    She points to a portion and says, “You wrote this? All of this? This is you?”
     
    “What do you mean?” I ask.
     
    “It’s really beautiful.”
     
    Her eyes are full of those
    still same tears my eyes
    want to be washed in.
     
    “Beautiful?”
     
    Grimacing at the thought of beauty found in the
    story of my life.
    How could beauty be found
    in a childhood lost?
     
    “Your life has been…too much, Louisa, for sure…but the way you write about it? It’s beautiful. You’re a poet.”
    I start picking at my nails again.
    A poet?
     
    Quietly I say, “No, Margot. Those are just the pathetic things that happened, I’m no poet. I’m just….”
     
    She stops me. “It’s not pathetic. It’s real. Here, listen to this:
     
     

72.
     
    “Some days I feel like I am breaking.
    Feel like
    I.
    Am.
    Breaking.
     
    I always thought the falling down or falling out
    would be a lot louder.
    Like a crash
    happen real fast
    feel fast
    no gravity to hold it up
    hold you up
    and the fall is deep
    and wide.
     
    And I’m spinning inside,
    dizzy inside
    wanting to hide, but I  can't.
    I’m in a wide-open space and there’s
    no door to crawl behind
    no hole in which to bury.
     
    Can’t I just bury
    my heart?
    Hurry real fast, before it breaks
    be gentle now, set it in the fresh
    dark dirt and put fistfuls on top of it
    to cushion it
    to soften it.
     
    Soften the blow that came so close.
     
    But my heart won't let itself be buried deep down.
    No.
    My heart felt the sweet touch of life.
    The touch where hands hold
    and heads touch
    and dreams are made
    and promises kept.
    Now the promises are broken
    and it’s too late.
     
    You can't protect the heart, it’s already lived too much.
    Loved too much.
     
    And when that happens
    that life living
    that life giving
     
    you can’t fight the feeling'.
     
    I wish I could.
    To save this heart from heartache and
    heartbreak.
     
    Soon the heartbreak
    becomes a break
    down
     
    it only happens to those of us who give in
    to the soul searching down real deep
    it's getting kind of scary here
    I’m feeling pretty weary here
    sort of life.
     
    They say the breaking into a million pieces
    isn't always so bad.
    So long as we can
    find a hand
    to help us pick up the parts
    and put them in the places they belong.
    Find a place to start again.
    Find a start that’s worth it.
     
    Worth the inevitable
    Break.
    Because it's going to happen
    again.
     
    Some days I feel like
    I.
    Am.
    Breaking.”
     

73.
     
    “Louisa, this is your story. Do you remember writing it?”
     
    Yes.
    I remember writing that .
    I remember why
    my heart
    I
    broke when I wrote it:
    Thirteen years old
    and it’s my birthday.
    The day of
    fairytale
    dreamscometrue
    blowoutthecandles
    makeawishparty
    the kind I dreamed about at six
    is not happening
    today.
     
    For a long time I just thought my parents
    were sad
    and if I just loved them
    the way they wanted,
    they might be happy.
    But the way they wanted always
    hurt
    so
    bad.
    When I started my period
    at twelve years old,
    a week before my thirteenth year ––
    I realized
    what the class at school meant
    and I realized what Dad
    did meant
    and it scared me so much
    that giving him what he wanted
    could do that to me.
     

74.
     
    I’d always been so oblivious.
    I just wanted
    to be
    normal.
    A family that eats together stays together.
    That’s what the lady
    who lived in the apartment down from mine
    would say
    to her son when she called him in
    from play.
     
    I wanted that.
    A family who ate together.
    Or at least a family who remembered to buy groceries
    and pay the electric bill.
    A dad who went to work and a mom
    who didn’t always go to her