When you begin life, you are pure. Untouched, unscathed, undamaged. It is the lack of experience, the lack of tainting and exposure to the evils that lurk, that makes you simple. You are born fresh, given a chance at life.

When you are first born, your bones are not fully developed. Instead, you are born with bones and cartilage that will eventually fuse to create stronger, healthier, and more supportive structures. Guiding you through life, your environment helps you build these bones. If you were born into a healthy, supportive, environment then you should have no problems forming these types of bones.

One of the most fundemental structures within your being is the Spine. Your spine is developed as a child, a form of "nature vs. nurture". Naturally, we all have spines as babies. However, being nurtured can rip ones' spine straight from their cerebral cortex. The connection is severed, and no form of self-supporting structure is formed. You begin to rely on others, take others' opinions as your own, lack an identity, and can even display self-destructive tendencies.

To have a spine is a luxury. Colloquially speaking, to have "a back bone". A sense of self.

During childhood and adolescence, your caregivers are there to help you build your spine, brick by brick, vertabrae by vertebrae. Every experience you have goes towards this sense of self, whether you want them to or not. Your fundemental years effect you, whether you want them to or not. When you fall, the perfect parents pick you up, and tell you it is okay to make mistakes. The perfect parents have healthy boundaries between parent and child, and help you to form some of your own. The perfect parents give you privacy, give you space to flourish, water you when you are dry, and allow you to cry if needed.

I was conditioned to endure. I haven't worked through my trauma yet, but I thought I knew the source of it; one man that pushed me down every time I tried to speak up. However, I have recently come to the conclusion that many subliminal messages have been handed to me throughout all of my childhood. Every bit of my childhood was made for endurance. I was not born in the perfect conditions, so my petals wilted, and I grew thorns. I have cut people. I have pierced others' skin, making them bleed. They ask, "why would you do this to me?". I do not know; I do not know myself. I am learning, though. I am able to heal now that my soil has been transferred from a dry, arid environment, to one rich with clay and nutrients. I wish to flourish. I wish I didn't have to beg for others' respect. I wish a lot of things were different. But here I am, blessed with the life that I can call my own. I don't know what to do with it. It was tainted before I even realized I was alive.

Written February 19th, 2022