It’s happening again.

Her nightmares have been occurring more and more. No matter how hard Maia tries, she can’t seem to escape them. They chase her into the deepest recesses of her mind, smashing through locked doors and hidden rooms, mercilessly dragging out everything she’s fought her entire life to forget.

She recognizes this wild and foreboding forest trail where she now stands—knows every detail of it with every cell of her being. She’s familiar with every green vein of each fluttering leaf, and every knotted and twisted branch snaking deep across the path. She’s walked this passageway thousands of times throughout her twenty years of life. Each night, when it greets her in her dreams, she knows her mother will be waiting for her on the other side.
​
And she knows what she’ll be expecting.

 It was the summer of 2018.

I had just finished writing my second book and was polishing the first half as much as possible so my husband could read it (and love it) while I was away and then give me his unending adoration for writing such a beautifully articulated story.

I left. I saw my family. I came home again.

But my husband did not completely love the first half of my book.

He enjoyed it, but had a few constructive critiques for me. They were good critiques - really good, and only a few. But all I could hear, deep inside, drumming like a mantra was;

I knew I wasn’t good enough. And I was right.

I didn’t touch my book again for an entire year. 

HER FINGERTIPS HOVER
ever so delicately 
just along the foggy pane of the bathroom glass.
Just behind.
Just behind. 

She carves a line on the mirror
the condensed water dripping like dew
from the tip of her finger.
Tracing the reflection of the lines
curving out from her eyes.

Wondering which worries have caused them…

Worries that matter.
Worries that don’t .

I yearn to whisper to her, 

Stop…

you’re missing it​.

My early morning workspace.