We are initiated.
We are apprenticed by pain.
Our beauty… Our purpose… Our expansion
Is forged in the fire of our difficulties.
Like a blacksmith, our suffering relieves us of our rough and tattered edges
Painfully at first
Until we are broken open.
And our soul pours like water through our every thought and word and action.
It extinguishes the fire of our pain.
It weathers our curses to such a degree that they become blessings.
And so, we are free.