Dark imagery
May God forgive me on this Easter Sunday. But I finally can describe how I have felt for the past few months.
My mum’s house flooding brought me to my knees… but not just on my knees, I was bound, gagged, and my wrists slashed open. I kept showing, screaming, begging those who were meant to care my bloodied wrists. Yet nothing.
That’s how I felt.
Standing up for me meant taking off the gag. Untying my own chains and using the fabric of my gag to bandage my wrists. They still bleed, but they are covered now. In the process of healing. I’m not the desperate, broken person on the floor begging for someone to help me. See me as a person and just give me a minute to pick myself up. I always do. I may not do it on your time but I always pick myself up. I get back up, dust myself off and win again. And again, and again: no way I got as far as I have with my backstory, without the intrinsic ability to survive in any condition. All that was meant to kill me has failed, so if I seem lost, I am. I’m not meant to be here, so I’m still figuring it out. I wanted to be a woman for the first time in my life. Not the strong one, not the titan or the fixer or the accountant. Just Anna, bring my whole, broken bloodied beaten self down and rest for a second. Not be the one who solves everything or fixes everyone. Just able to turn my brain down a power gear. From hyper aware to the next power mode.. Rather than being a place where I could develop myself and bring my full faculties to the adventure… work became a place of fear and betrayal. It proved to me that I couldn’t ever put the sword and shield down. I have wondered why the the flooding shocked me so badly. The house has, all things considered been spared, it could have been a lot worse. But it comes down to dad. Always dad, the room he died in has been destroyed and I always worry about his spirit. I needed time for that shock to reverberate through my body and then leave me, because I have a constant care for his spirit. Will he recognise his home? Will he leave me if he doesn’t recognise home? Daddy’s girl should never be without her daddy and I am. And I cope, but I’m not ready to let go. I have already lost him. I can’t lose his spirit too. The dining room will forever be the room where I lost my dad. His imperial, regal body, lying there never again to smile at me. Never to hug me again. It doubled down on the cold of the unheated room. The chill of my home and the ice in my heart. Frozen in time from the last time it beat. 22nd July 2021. 3:30am.
There I have said it. So maybe I was floored, beaten, gagged and bound by the strength of my grief. I couldn’t cope with anything else. I can see the power of what I was going through now. I couldn’t then. Does it make anything better or easier? Nope, the tears are being cried retrospectively. All will be well, I self comfort. It’s hollow. Beale’s daughter finally showed signs of becoming a woman about her own mind. What he’d think of me, I would like to think he’d be in awe of his little daughter, finally taking after him and his lion heart. Living bravely, boldly and true to herself.
Please be proud of me dad. I miss you.
Grace and Courage. I’m
Your little Nambarra.
Annetta Mother Smith