relapse:
the act or an instance of backsliding, worsening, or subsiding
a recurrence of symptoms of a disease after a period of improvement
Here I am again,
In the Before,
caught in the
Vortex of Bad Ways,
caught in the
Stream of Unhealth
swimming in toxins
mostly of my own
making.
And I must slowly
find my way home,
find mno bmadzewen,
the Good Life,
the Heathy Ways.
Maybe I’ll never be free
of relapse,
but every day I’ll learn
what it means to
step out
swim back
decolonize
return.
That must be
enough.
I wonder if relapse is our attempt
to give language to
non-linearity
It’s so much easier to say I
believe in the non-linear
process of healing and liberation
than to experience it
I wonder if I reframed my relapses
as the liminal spaces
of wholeness
And met them with compassionate
curiosity — perhaps my
resistance to them would loosen and
I wouldn’t feel trapped in them
Relapse
When I was in the Evangelical world
To “Backslide” was one of my greatest fears
To do so, meant to lose it all
So, I wore the skirts, didn’t swear, read the Bible, did Devotions, lifted my hands, volunteered,
taught Sunday School, went overseas to ‘help’, for so many years
Not realizing that each year ‘Forward’
Was actually pushing me further and further Back from my most authentic self
I’ve slid so far Back now
That I’ve been able to start on a new path
Of Freedom