Mine own.

It comes quite suddenly at times... the ever tightening grip on my heart... the race against fear that my mind can't seem to win... panic.
There is no pattern to when it happens, but i guess that's just one more piece of this process that i'm only now truly tasting.
I hadn't known what it felt like to suddenly feel like i needed to rip open my aching chest just to manually slow my own treacherous heartbeat as it sought to betray me.
I hadn't known the moments when memories would find me and I'd lose my ability to breathe through them.
So I urgently dig to the deepest part of me for just one ounce of courage to talk myself down from the crumbling ledge of hopelessness. Gently i whisper life to my spirit, begging peace to know my name. It's here that I've learned, once again, to cry out, "Abba, help!"
Slowly I begin to feel my heart remember itself and my breathing begin to fall into a steady and unchained movement through my chest.

Selah.

This is a shade of grief I've never known before. It bleeds to the point of death and then forgets to kill me. It continually tears at my memories like flesh from my bone... Piece by piece.
So I remain.

Here is where I've met the ache that for now I'll live with and learn from, but It will not define me. It will not own me.