Shadows cascading underneath her broken roots and twisted petals. She dances with the inconsistent rhythm of past destruction. Sliding across the dance floor like how she slides across her pain on the surface of her wounds. She was dancing in the sense of the crackling cyclone, but appeared to be beautifully and lost in her waltz. With the death of hard feelings and reprise of her liability. She stayed until the joyful chaos dancing around her mind snuggled in the white sheets and calmed down into a muttering sleep. At these hours, she dreams how she sees herself living a new life that the nightmares dream of. It made her more eager to morph into the person she desired to see herself as.

Each day I struggle whether it involves with chronic pain I feel once I get up in the morning, or feeling like I am not enough due to people's departures in my journey. I struggle with the thoughts that race. But I get up each morning with a purpose no matter how much emotional and physical pain I am feeling. 1 accomplishment. I take my meds. 2 accomplishments. I shower, get dressed, and do my makeup each day. 3 accomplishments. I head to all of my classes and go to work right after. 4 accomplishments. Right after class and work, I work on homework and work on personal artistic projects. 5 accomplishments. Each night when the thoughts try to crawl down my spine, I write till my grip on the pen isn't tight enough. 6 accomplishments. I became a junior counselor and student experience coordinator at admissions. 9 accomplishments. I go to therapy every Thursday to alleviate my mental health. 10 accomplishments. I am alive. 11 accomplishments.

In the night, I’d wake to feeling the fear reflecting upon my smooth caramel skin, a tan that I will never lose.

A ghost, I carried into the night

She went right through me

A despondent curmudgeon

An altruistic human being

Who is she?

One was an ideal fiction

The other a reality

How they amused each other?

Wicked lines of blue and indigo etched underneath my raw skin

Ripping the thorns of the crimson rose

Promising I wouldn’t cry over the spilled blood

Intermittent affection

Hands shaking

Scarlet confusion

The faint smell of pure devotion lingering in an empty room

One masked with their shadows

The other showcasing their pulchritude

One was a centipede

The other a butterfly

Embarrassed I couldn’t bloom

I couldn’t fly gracefully across the waves to consistency

The other I dreamed

The other I drank

Bittersweet aftertaste of whiskey, losses, worries, and gifts

The pain imprinted the bird on my lower back

Broke through the walls of my heart

The horizon filled with orange tint, so fluorescent

No longer a ruin

My name is.. Natalya Alexandra Cook

Through reflecting on all of those accomplishments and my strength, I realized that no matter how big or small my accomplishments are, I have to honor them and give myself enough credit. Through these accomplishments, I realized that Im becoming a person that I desired to become all along. Each day I am allowing the past chapters of my life close in. Reflection and patience. Allowing myself to unite with the radiance of the sun and touch my awakening. Now I have blossomed regardless of the struggles I face each day. I hope to inspire you to do the same. You are not buried in negativity. You are planted as a wild flower ready to blossom. To have your skin have a scent of milk and honey. Outlining your rose petals. Cultivating and blossoming as a resilient individual regardless of the decomposition that life may display. I hope to inspire you.

YOU have to have the craving of obtaining rejuvenation to stimulate your sense. YOUR STORY. YOUR STRUGGLES. YOUR STRENGTHS. All of the elements that comprise your being. It all starts with you.

I hope to inspire you.