Finding Your Voice with Robin Rice + Emily McDowell - LESSON 2

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LESSON 2: 

Photo Credit Jim Chapman

Photo + Story Start With 10 Minutes Timed Writing -

"Oh little birdie, I understand. I was once in the hand of someone much bigger than me, and..." 

"Oh little birdie, I understand. I was once in the hand of someone much bigger than me, and..." 

At first he was tender, cradling me in my time of need, comforting me, making me believe again.

Oh, I believed. I believed he was gentle and kind, beautiful and wise. I believed in the future he promised, the healing he said would come. I believed in the glue he offered, putting me back together piece by piece.

He was everything I thought I wanted, needed, but that was all part of the ruse, wasn’t it? To gain my trust, to fool me wholly into believing him.

Believing IN him.

When his fist first tightened—just a fraction—I didn’t notice. How could I, so warm and safe as I was within his loving grasp? When he began to cherish me too much, to hold onto me too tightly, I didn’t understand, didn’t see the forest for the trees. He was mine and I was his and I was safe there in his hands, so much bigger than mine, so much stronger.

Slowly at first, they closed in on me, those hands.

Just a little pressure here and a little tightening there.

So subtle at first that I didn’t notice the signs, didn’t notice the warnings. As he tightened his fist around my soul, I allowed him that power. He loved me, cherished me, wanted to protect me inside that big strong hand.

By the time I realized my savior had become my captor, it was too late. I was a shell of who I’d been before.

Before.

Before him. Before the tragedy that brought him into my life, drawn to me like a moth to a flame, only I was the moth, and he was the flame calling me toward him, closer, closer…

Until there was no longer me, there was just fire and heat and pain, molding me, burning me, hurting me until I could take it no longer. Until I could stand the flames no more. And I will never be the same. I will never be that broken bird he once cradled in his hand. I will never be weak, able to be so easily caught. I will never be the prey again. Because as I waited there in that fire, waited in that unbearable heat, I was changing, Slowly, almost as imperceptibly as that first tightening of his hands. And as he held me to the flame, breaking me down and making me what he wanted, I did not succumb to the fire.

I became the fire.

And I burned his hand.

And he released me.