If you wait in indecision for too long it will devour your soul.

Prince Charming is complicated and often late. Snow White, pure as she was, filled with love, dies from wicked poison before a kiss.

I am poetry–in every sense of the word the emotion it takes to untangle and define the existence of everything, my true self and nature. But instead, today, I barely exist outside of the painful minutia of each day, in a place where I was side-railed by circumstance (decision and indecision – mine, and for tolerating it from others).

I fought a good fight for a long time, for every dream I held dear, until I laid down from chronic heartache, put to rest my struggle, and instead gave into the death of a false-perceived certainty, via comfort and security–the worst death of all because you are alive to see and feel yourself wither away. Now, I dream the dreams I held close to reality, too painful to bear. I remember who I was, pick a pretty dress from my closet to wear, then step in front of the mirror, but I cannot find her. I betrayed myself and she expresses it looking back into my eyes.

I locked-up the idea of true love and romance in a distant corner of my mind, repressed my heart that it should not feel, nor desire anything I deemed elusive. I submerged myself in darkest despair, while keeping busy with hideous details pretending to be a life; I gratified my pain with salt and sugar, flour and butter–a romantic battle cooking in the kitchen–served a medium-rare, shallot and brandy-infused filet mignon, a luscious cream and chocolate broken heart.

This slumber imposed upon myself, to escape, became a nightmare. Now, I must find trust within, to believe and not to fear the howling ache of disappointment at the end of hope–the empty pit in my stomach that cried for something to sooth its devastation, so that I might change my life from stillness–counting the time gone by with nothing but waiting in between–to actually living again.

It’s time to stop mourning the death of a life that was, and to find the courage and stamina to conquer, with love, one that is waiting to exist.

I love you, enough, Maria

Maria Pisciotta-DellaPorte

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