Article voiceover
A label elicits things defined by the docs that dictate a meaning of me. Of my moods, my nerves, my actions, inactions, and participation with life. Name them, name it first so shall I heal. But naming it means it's real, it happened, it is happening, it's there. And once it has a name, can I not see it anymore? Can I choose to ignore? Suffer in silence, evade and avoid, save myself. God won't let me do that. Love asks me, invite me, to surrender to the cracks inside of me leaking with all the stuff of living. All the choices I did not make but rather, I survived. Crack it open, life says, and move and shake so it pours out of me and cleanses me anew. Name it, so I can damn it away away away, be gone and let be. This power, learning, growth, healing, it belongs to ME. So name is I shall, I must. I will into existence a future of free, a moment of Me. This poem is from the book, Die with Me: Surrendering to Suffering.