Unlearning

Sometimes things burrow themselves so deep inside my skin
inside my life
inside the sanctuary of my mind
And it’s so hard to remove them

I want them gone
Vehemently
I want them gone yesterday
I want to yank them out like weeds in my mother’s backyard
So I’ve been pulling
and dragging
and digging going on 5 years now

Nothing works.
Dragging at these little pieces hurts
I get blisters on my hand
I get scars and bruises
Dragging at the weeds means dragging at myself
I want me to stay
I want me to stay rooted
Burrowed in the soft, welcoming earth of who I am

Lately I’ve been trying a gentler approach
Lately I’ve been trying to gently unlearn parts of myself
the parts I don’t want anymore
I want to unlearn them all
the habits
the people
the misconceived notions about life and happiness

I want to sit in the library inside my head
and calmly take a pair of shears to the pages
the ones filled with lies and hate and hurt
I want to scale the ladders
and throw down books with words that taught me
to be everything I don’t want to be
I want to watch them burn