DEAR SHAME,

My Beloved, you held me in your warm grasp for so long. You were a giant, milky woman who engulfed me within your porous body. I lived for years within the damp space inside you. I lived for so long in the dark, feeling so safe within the confines of your bodily prison. I felt at home with all those sour memories of being told I was bad which then became my own belief. It was there that you, Dear Shame, whispered to me in the dark. I listened for your subtle, dense whine and knew you were with me when I heard it. I got to want to be with your voice, to have it affirm what I already believed--that I was a bad boy, that I had done wrong, and that it was right for me to feel the way I felt. It became my comfort to hide in your dark corners with my pitiful beliefs about myself.

I wanted no part of the light of day. So I drank the alcohol that was poison for me, that kept me within you, in that soft place where I could know I was bad and revel in my badness because you, Dear Shame, were the one who told me I’d found a home within you.

It wasn’t until I felt you so much, Shame, when you overpowered me that I needed to escape, even from you that had kept me so well. Because for me, I couldn’t imagine being that close to anyone, any entity at all--so I opened the door, just a crack, just enough for a thin ray of light to break in. Instantly the light let me see the awfulness of the place you kept me. I was living in the most horrible dungeon filled with slime and all horrible kinds of filth--I was living within your bowels.

And when the door was opened and some air came in, I smelled for the first time, the disease of Shame--the putridity of it all. But, at the same time I now knew, as I filled my lungs with air, that the disease of shame was separate from me. I had nothing more to be ashamed of. I was not a bad boy. In the light I could see--I was me and that it was okay to be me.

When I stepped out of your grasp and cleansed myself of you, I was proud of what I saw. I was proud of my body, of the clear look in my eye and no longer felt ashamed of anything I had done--most especially I felt no shame in leaving you.

I feel better and stronger with each step I take as I walk away from you, Dear Shame. I had let you, in your evilness, suck me into your grasp. But with my new strength, and with all the goodness I now feel about myself, I am happy to walk further and further away from you each day. And I don’t bother looking back.