perhaps introductions are in order

hi, I'm June...

This is the writing that feels most outside of me. I write my own experiences and stories with relative ease, and maybe you have picked up on the pieces of me scattered within them.

Trying to tell you who I am in isolation is a more terrifying challenge than telling you about my darkest day or misbegotten friendships.

If there is a theme to my writing, and the intentions that brought me here, it’s identity, or more accurately, a lack thereof.

I could give you the facts…

28

Female

USA

Wife

Sister

Dog-Mom

Amateur Potter

Wanna-be-Yogi

But what do those things tell you about me, except that there is a digestible version of me that exists within society?

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I want to tell you that I am you, and I am not you.

I have trauma and the scars it left behind.

I have a heart and the great yearnings that accompany it.

I have a body that has stayed despite the pain I’ve inflicted upon it.

My life is imperfect, though I often wish it to be otherwise.

My relationships have bonds and holes, and I spend a great deal of time navigating both with care.

My brain feels ever at odds with my reality.

My life costs money. I do nothing glamorous to sustain its insatiable hunger.

My life has love. I work hard to never take that for granted.

There is a quiet torture in my soul. I honor it the best I know how.

I have been a caged bird, longing to fly free.

I have been a free bird, missing the safety of its former cage.

I am not special.

But sometimes I feel special.

Sometimes I see what others cannot or choose not to.

Sometimes I know what others cannot or choose not to.

Sometimes I hear the truth behind spoken words.

Sometimes I hurt from the isolation this casts upon me.

Sometimes I long for ignorance and satisfaction.

But I have never been satisfied a day in my life.

Content and complacency know no home in my bones.

I push. I strive. I change. I try.

Never enough.

Never enough.

Never enough.

I push boundaries.

I hold boundaries.

I say what I think.

I will call out your contradictory bullshit.

You will lose me if you continue to hurt me so.

But if you should fall to your knees in plea and regret,

I will hold the imperfect parts of you still.

I will honor your truth if you offer it to me.

I will tend to your wounds, hoping for nothing in return but to see you smile again.

And my love is the unconditional sacrifice I vow to you.

Should you appear before me naked and defenseless, I, too, will respond in equal measure.

Should someone threaten our love, I will fight until my final breath for you and for us.

Should you need leave from the intensity of this thing we’ve forged together, I shall let you go, but always know I love you still.

I hold in my body a unique ecosystem.

It won’t be familiar to you at first.

It may never be for you at all.

My power is potent.

It will expose your weakness.

It will threaten your identity.

It will force a reconciliation of the self.

But should you weather my storm,

I will make you whole.

I will regrow you with the power of my sun.

I will harvest the best of you.

I will reignite your spirit.

This is to say, both with and without ego.

Because like you, I, too, take pride in my work.

But my pride is found only in the knowledge that you knew me, and I knew you,

And we both were made better for it.

So, who does this tell you I am?

Do you know me better now than you did before?

My job, my age, or where I live can’t tell you what I’ve laid bare here. They do not reflect me as much as they reflect the concessions I make to belong.

Here you may see the core of my nature. More exposed than if you were to come face-to-face with me one random day. First impressions don’t often reveal so much.

When I tell you I see you, I mean this version of you, too. I see the you that is beneath the concessions and the performance. I see the you behind the mask.

& that is who I long to know.

Now it’s your turn. Who are you?

me & you

anyway, here I am…

-June

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