Quinn Steele

Untouchable

she watches me and I am still

I slit her throat and gouge her eyes

Still.

I wrote this during a pivotal transformation. I had torn my life down to bare bones, running from my own suffering straight into discomfort. It felt less like discomfort and more like death. I was, in essence, allowing an old part of myself to die. I had to shed an old identity in order to grow in the ways I needed to for myself and my children.

This part of myself was so embedded in my identity, that I felt I couldn’t reach her. She was the little girl who believed that the truth is that we are all alone. She chased others off with her mantra, “I’ll do it myself!” Almost forty years later, that’s exactly what I was doing…doing it myself, all by myself. The mantra that I’d once needed to feel safe had turned sour, sabotaging my relationships, as I silently continued along doing it all by myself.

I couldn’t get to her. She was behind a wall of fear. I was untouchable because she was untouchable. She was watching me, convinced she was protecting me. She was like my shadow, watching me from behind the ice. There were times that the pain was so great, that it was as if she took over for me. I sank to the background, and she kept things running.

Ultimately, it was my fear that needed to die. I had to embrace her, and it, in order to free us both. I had to admit to the fear I’d been holding onto for all these years. It was only love that could melt the ice and destroy the wall that kept us separate. She was the key to my growth.