You may think a voice is not a thing seen, but I know it is. 

A voice used is endless azure skies.

A voice heard is roses, daisies, fuchsia and daffodils, a feathered, sparkling waterfall.

A Voice expressed is calligraphy on parchment, lips intent against a microphone, eyes shut tight and tears streaming for a stranger.

It looks like many things, a happy shape shifter.

I had not seen my voice, though I knew it could be seen. I just knew it.

But I could not see it,

Not hidden behind ice stone walls of “Who do you think you are?” and selfish Selfish SELFISH and You hurt me with your loud voice, your opinions, so different than mine.

I couldn’t see it through the murky waters of child-created survival-beliefs, unidentified, unspoken;

Its vastness compacted in a tangled ball of rags,

A treasure whispering under layer after layer of reptilian skin.

I knew it was there. I just knew it. Somewhere.

I even knew what it looked like or some version of it, its lightness and glow, the purple velvet bravery of it, the soft fur pleasure of it, the triumphant sunset sparkle, the crashing wave of endless sea.

But I could not see it.

Not until the unraveling of that knotted ball, 

The slow chiseling of the ice stone walls, 

The peeling back of the rough skin as my fingers bled;  Not without stirring up the silty, rotten bottom of the pond, flinching, sinking my toes into that squishy muck.

A dozen years. More. Of this. Of pulling and cracking and kicking with force. Of crying not to go in, legs weak, fingers numb.

But a dozen years. More. 

Resistance and persistence both. 

Years of talking and talking and crying and crying and hair-pulling, and then hearing and comprehending and naming. Of anger and fear and relief and mourning.

And forgiveness. And learning how not to judge.

And there it was. 

I reached out and touched it. I knew it! I just knew it.

And now I hold it dear, dear voice of mine, to my chest alive, warm in my fingers, reaching, flying through trees and sky, all colors, all possibilities. All a part of me.

It’s not that I can rest. It can move away, my voice. It does it all the time. 

And then I have to pull it back into me again, pet and soothe and talk to it. Find laughter with my voice. We do like to laugh, my voice and me.

That’s what a voice looks like. I know it now with certainty.

And with my voice seen and held and tested, it’s not that I became whole finally.

I become whole every day.