Loyalty in the Ink
written by Azariah Zai
Here’s my creative approach to answer my own questions through journaling and learning how to process (sit with certain emotions).
It started off with this weird ass question I’ve been pondering on…
Why is there this weird loyalty and attachment to my abuser I can’t seem to shake?
Why does my hand still reach for the pen that once carved scars instead of stories?
Why does the page still whisper your name when I only meant to write myself free?
It is a strange loyalty, a thread stitched into muscle memory…
like the way a brush keeps dipping into the same color even when the canvas is begging for something brighter.
My mind is a beatmaker looping the same track of your shadow, a rhythm etched so deep I forget the silence exist.
and yet…
maybe this is my body trying to process what it was forced to hold,
trying to learn how to sit with the dissonance without erasing the sound.
Because healing is not about hating the ink, or destroying the canvas, or smashing the sampler…
it is about learning to rewrite,
to repaint,
to remix
the fragments I was given.
You are not the final draft of my story.
You are just one verse I no longer need to rhyme with.
**connect with me on Instagram @AzariahZai for more in depth and authentic expressions.
