The nature of resistance is tricky

It brings to mind warring countries,

one occupying another

But on an individual level

we can be occupied internally

without any outside force 

holding us hostage,

yet we’re still not free

A woman

who takes a job she hates

out of a sense of “responsibility”

and stays and stays

despite her internal resistance

After years of thwarting herself

hobbling her voice and creativity

her knee gives out

she’s eventually unable to walk 

out of real pain in the body

replacing the psychic pain

of an ill-fitting job & life

Where she’s placed the tourniquet 

to seal off the pain

it blocks the joy too

and she’s suddenly clear

the stagnation of her life 

her inability to move

in sharp relief

to who she once was

and who she can still be

No matter the length of 

the suspended animation

with the decision 

to turn around, to heal

to move forward,

the tourniquet removed

the blood flows back

and it hurts even more as it does

but the only way out is through

the momentary pain

a reckoning

with heaviness of

how she’s betrayed herself

consciously chosen over

continually silently suffering

When we learn to occupy ourselves

fully with no room left

for outside voices or forces

that maybe once were useful

but now are no longer helpful

we take back our power 

and we are free.