Here you are at last! My eyes bruised from crying so much, my soul, weakened, dried up, begins again, by some grace, to function. And how do I do it? My “prison spirit” has finally escaped its cage, fleeing into the night, without jacket or luggage. I stand there, stunned by all of “this”, heart stretched toward the sky. Everything comes back… scraps of memories forgotten by the shovelful, coming in the night to batter my brain. One by one, like a ghost train, they emerge from the tunnel and… I finally open my eyes onto these still-smoking minefields, the remnants of a life scattered there. Ah! My arms fall limp! Exploding inside me like a bomb… And now, only now, I understand that I had MYSELF, that I carried this deep love of a gift that had been left to me when I was little, like a piece of gold, a nugget to remind me of my worth, to keep me in happiness, no matter what happens, no matter what. Come on! I’m going — I slip out quietly, ears alert, listening for the sound of footsteps, the ones that surround you and kill you… so softly. Under the rock, down below, quick! I move forward, I leap… I launch myself… I spread my wings breaking, in one beat, these invisible chains unseen by “the others”, imperceptible. “You belong to me,” he used to say, there will always be this thread and distance will do nothing. Hey! Now I can see him from above! Masked, dressed in this mantle of power. Beyond the distorted mirror he held out to me, He wanted to create “a family” with a father, a mother, brothers and sisters made of tinsel… dying of thirst in a desert where mirages were legion, full of shining things. My feathers become a sextant, my eyes piercing… true love of myself, deep respect for who I am and where I come from… Do you know? I looked for you every morning of my life in old wells, along the paths, I searched the bushes one by one, the undergrowth, to find you lying there, among the leaves, motionless, watching for the signs of an imminent departure toward the opposite shore, the one where we live free and where time takes back its rightful place… Here I am at last! I have flown over all my lands, I have seen beyond the bars, beyond the fences, the vastness, the beauty and the joy of knowing I am free in my choices.
