I took a razor blade
To cut away the strangling root
I thought was snaking up around my family tree
It was hard
I don’t like cutting
But I steeled myself
I was afraid: afraid to act, afraid not to act
It was not done thoughtlessly
But it was desperate
I cut the root
And the bleeding started
The blood flowed out
Pain and anguish and sullen grief
There was so much
I could not see, until later
It was not a root
It was an artery
I had cut the tie that binds

The house of my spirit has many rooms
I can move through all of them
Some neat and spare
Some cluttered with delicate art
In some the psychic detritus of latent dreams
Courage is needed
To venture into the labyrinthine dark
Of nether spaces
Haunted by echoes of lament
Of fear
Of failure remembered, over and over
Of self-doubt, and self-hate, and self-persecution
Descending in slime and dark to places where hope dies
Yet other ways call to me
With brilliant power
The lofty rooms
Citadels of love
To walk like giants
To be as gods
To grasp and hold
No, to channel and feel
The living song of the universe
Of what it means to be alive
To replace the whispers of defeat
With affirmations of achievement
To choose joy, yet to own and understand the suffering
To be complete, as much as possible
It is all affirmation
It is the power of the word
It is the will for deeds to follow
It is understanding the power to choose
The house of my spirit has many rooms
Infinite numbers of ways
To seek them all
Is the road I long to choose