I.
We must
heal the wounds of childhood
to find freedom
from the constricting stories
written there. 

II.
Wake up tomorrow
no longer remembering
your personal narrative,
all its falsehoods forgotten:
    "I'm too…"
    "I can't…"    
    "I'll never be good enough to…"
    "I'm this way because…" 

What if you had no story?
What if all you had
was the completely open possibility
of now?

Who would you be
if freed from your story?

III.

Our stories
about ourselves
do not make us who we are;
our stories
about ourselves
keep us from being who we are.

Our stories
provide the walls
of our cells,
comforting, perhaps,
but at what cost?

We are prisoners
clutching the bars of those cells,
while doorways
wait open behind us.

Text and
image © 2013 by Dirk deVries. All rights reserved.