"self redemption" image from craiyon.com
poem submitted to "Venting or Redemption" poetry contest, Seth Pina, sponsor, April 3, 2026
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I made a vow in the bright heat of youth, a promise forged from watching a body unravel~ my mother’s world shrinking as her own flesh betrayed her. I swore I would not follow. I built myself like a bastille, stone by stone, running mile by mile, believing discipline could outpace time. But time has its own blueprints. One fall, one fracture, and the body I had sculpted with devotion folded into a shape I never chose. Height lost, spine twisted, grief settling into the hollows where muscle once lived. Old fears rose like ghosts and for a moment, I bowed my head. But only for a moment. Because even now~ in this changed, imperfect frame~ something in me refuses surrender. I count calories, I move, I walk. I garden. I choose again. Twelve pounds gone, eighteen waiting their turn, each one a small reclamation. And I understand now what my younger self could not: redemption isn’t a finish line. It’s a daily reaching, a hand extended toward yourself even when the mirror feels unkind. This body is still mine~ weathered, altered, but steadfast in its loyalty. It carries me forward, and I carry it with grace. I am not the woman I feared becoming. I am the woman who endures, who adapts, who rises~ again and again~ in the only body I will ever call home.
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