You are not defined by your pain, by your past, by what has broken you. You are defined by how you believe and by how you rise.
Catalog
Marisa Donnelly
Marisa Donnelly graduated Summa Cum Laude from Waldorf University in May 2015 with a B.S. in Secondary English Education, a B.A. in English, and a B.A. in Creative Writing with endorsements in Secondary Reading and Coaching. She is a Midwest-born, West Coast-based writer, poet, essayist and licensed teacher working as a full-time Staff Writer and Editor/Producer for Thought & Expression Co.
You are not defined by your pain, by your past, by what has broken you. You are defined by how you believe and by how you rise.
because I’m 2,000 miles away with only my heartbeat keeping me company, and I’m the happiest I’ve ever been.
See, we’re all searching to be found. And lately, I like being lost.
You were all things soft: a feather, a candle a kiss on a tired cheek. But you were not weak. You took the world and made all yours. And yes, you became.
And so you became. Your soul felt lighter, shifting with the weight of change. You stopped trying to fit and started to just be. Imperfect and flawed, tough and soft, tender and strong.
Maybe where the sky and the water and the sand meet my new story begins. I am just now in my infinite moment becoming.
You were born with wandering feet and a heart already whole.
I have found a home in a woman strong, fierce, and loved. And she smiles back at me in the bathroom mirror. Proud and unafraid.
You were meant to run. Born to grab the earth with your fingertips, taste the wild and uncharted on your tongue.
You were never foolish for kissing him, for looking deep into his eyes, for losing your footing like a teenager, stumbling and drunk on love.
You were young, And you were searching, even then. But you were trying to make homes out of temporary people. Trying to find yourself in the body of a stranger who could never fill you, never complete you, never satisfy the longing in your chest to be both protected and set free, both loved and let…
I hope wherever she takes you that you will learn to call the place home. And that you will let the sky fill you with rain when you are emptied like a bucket overflowing, spilling off the edges, quenching the thirst of our broken earth Until you no longer ache for anything but your steady legs and…
Real love is never about the hours the months the years nestling between two bodies. With you and I, the clock will never stand a chance.
I feel free somewhere on a highway where time is endless and I choose where I will go and who I will become.
A highway cleanses— my feet to the gravel or foot on the gas, destination lost in yellow lines, in faded street signs and the woman I used to be in the rearview.
I tasted the ocean salt like freedom on your lips
Now I understand time never mattered with love—with us. You can’t erase a person’s touch from your memory or stop your heart from beating at the mention of a name.
You survive. You let go. You burned your pain, held the ashes in your palm and set them free into the sky.
Perhaps I was never meant to wander on tired feet. Perhaps they ache after long days because the soles bear the weight of a world where they will never belong.