On the other side

I have passed the gauntlet.

I have run through hell.

And now I can stand on the other side

and breathe.

Standing here,

hell cooling in the distance,

I think it wasn't so bad.

Like labor pains are forgotten

in the first flush of love.

I have come through the pain

and the labor 

and I am new again,

stronger, happier.

Scarred but not scared.

May 2014