Sometimes I share things I write. Only sometimes though.

The garden was overtaking her soul. She felt it encasing her, but she didn't fight it. Her heart was too weak. Her soul was too broken. Maybe she'd just get lost in the garden for a while.

Walking through this garden she let herself go. She sat down in the middle of some flowerbed filled with wonderful flowers with a name she couldn't say and took in the beautiful scent. She breathed heavily until her breathing became hard, long, loud sobs. She cried for everything in her life that she saw falling apart around her. She cried because she didn't feel like she was strong enough to handle this by herself, but couldn't bear to ask for help. She cried because she need to cry.

Overcome by the crying and the intensity of the moment she collapsed on to her back among the flowers. She closed her eyes and thought of what life was like when she was a small child. Easy and carefree. Nothing ever went wrong. She never needed to pretend like everything was okay when it really wasn't. She wanted nothing more than to go back to being a child again. She wanted to be a child and she wanted to lay in the garden forever. The flowers were her only friends. They didn't care if she made a fool of herself crying until she couldn't breath. They didn't judge her. They didn't look at her and think, "Oh, that poor soul," like everyone else. They let her be.

It wasn't until she woke up and it was dark outside that she even realized she'd fallen asleep in the flowerbed. Instead of moving--getting up and going inside--she stayed put. She stared up at the night sky and took in the stars. They were so captivating. It was almost like they were staring back at her. She wondered if they could see into the inner workings of her soul. She wondered if people who looked at her could see the inner workings of her soul. These days she didn't look people in the eye. If someone looked her in the eye, they'd be able to see that the smile on her face was a facade and that the truth was that her soul was broken into a million pieces. If the stars could see her broken soul, they didn't let on. They just shined and smiled at her. They made her smile, and for the first time in weeks, it wasn't a fake smile. She was really smiling. Her smile became a slight laugh which continued to grow until she was laughing so loudly she was sure that the whole neighborhood could hear her. She laughed until she cried, but this time they weren't painful tears, they were happy tears. Good tears. When she could finally breathe again, she stood up and stretched. As she stretched she felt something about her shift; something emotional.

She was free. Free from all of the pain that had been so overwhelming she could barely function. Free from the judgment of others--she knew it didn't matter what anyone thought about her. Free from her own brokenness. She was whole and she was free. She smiled and walked away from the flowers that had saved her soul, and looked up at the stars that had made her whole.