Patience love, I have nothing but patience.
I know you might not be ready to speak with me or see me, I'm aware of the reasons why. I know I have not always been kind or respectful of your requests in the past and so there is room to doubt my transformation is real. I know you feel like I didn't always listen like I should and in truth perhaps I didn't, so there must be abudant reason to cast all of these daily affirmations under the guise of empty lip service. I know that you are probably very afraid of the pain I could visit upon your still healing heart because I am sure that I have hurt you before, the proof of that is my own bleeding heart for the pain is one I bear at the things I have visited upon you: all my inner demons and my self defacing tendencies. I regret all those things, because they are not the core of me. They bury my better qualities under their toxic sludge and make me cast away those I truly love because I fear the pain they might inflict onto me.
I was so terrified before of the fact that I might actually have had to look you in the eye and say "I'm sorry, I was was wrong, I don't know why I'm doing these things but I want to change." I feared that maybe if I did that, you would agree and get rid of me. That it would make me imperfect in a way I was unable to see was capable of being changed before. Make no mistake, it is not an excuse I put it to you plainly, I am guilty of all those things. I ask for the chance to humbly apologize to you and offer you the healing and closure it will bring. I wish only the chance to show you that I have changed, and continue to change. I wish only to show you that the things you were asking of me, seeking within me before, are all here just as you knew, waiting under the surface to bloom. Come and wander these gardens, eat from the tree of knowledge here if you wish, there will be no fall from grace in it. There is only love and learning in this place. You may enter this circle if you wish, with perfect love and perfect trust.
My dearest love, you should know, I'm not interested in repeating old habits anymore. I'm not bound to the way I used to think and conduct myself any longer. It serves neither myself or others and so I can no longer find any merit in it. Like a snake, my eyes clouded over before I had to shed my own skin. And like a serpent, each time I shed my skin it allows me to grow. These are the tough pinching scales of an old tight skin and I wish to discard them. I was just having trouble seeing that I could leave this all behind me and reveal new brilliant colors too bold to imagine yet. But to be sure, the old decaying skin is falling away faster than anyone could have imagined, even myself. I am changing shape and form, becoming more and more myself everyday. This new glow radiates outward and all that come into contact notice its luster, its brilliant shine. After 26 years on this planet trying to master it, I have learned the secret of Transmogrification: it is love.
Everywhere I go, reminders of your wonderful personality are thrust into my consciousness as if the fates are mocking me for ever having known you and now living in limbo without you. It is as if a phantom limb tortures me with the sweet caress of a summer's breeze I know I am not really feeling, your absence is that palpable. Last night, I sat in a flat in San Francisco with one of my old friends, waiting for our night to begin. As I sat there, my eyes wandered to the bookshelf across from me. Hunter S. Thompson's The Great Shark Hunt leapt off the shelf in bold typeface, below it Harry Potter and The Deadly Hallows, below that Anne Rice's Pandora. The irony hit me that all around me were books, and as I scanned them I realized I had seen so many of their winking jackets before adorning your bookcases. Stephen King, David Serdaris, Ellen Hopkins their names spreading within me a kind of longing I have never known. I wondered immediately, what are you reading now? You are always reading something, I miss that about you my sweet brilliant girl. I smiled and wandered close to the bookshelf and ran my lonely fingers over the spine that bore Hunter S. Thompson's name. Could I just keep you like this, in my heart, with me forever? Would that be alright?
Just then my friend turned on some music and the laugh that escaped my throat was one of pure joy. For some unknown reason, of all the songs and artists he could have possibly chosen to land on, he put on Atmosphere. The song was Sunshine and I found myself singing along. I told him all about how you had exposed me to this music, how it was now a part of me and I loved it. We talked about Atmosphere and I felt like you were there with me. When I talked about the first songs you exposed me to: God Loves Ugly, The Woman with the Tattooed Hands, Trying to Find a Balance, my heart swelled and I wished I could hear your voice again. I wished I could see the way you looked in my car listening to these songs, hear the writing you used to churn out as these beats and samples mixed in the air along to Slug's voice. There is so much you have shared with me, and I have kept as much of it as I can with me, for I am privileged to have been exposed to any of it. It is immeasurable, beyond all possible fantasies, I am so blessed to have had you in my life, in my heart.
Our friends came soon with some faces I have never seen before, and through it all I was the picture of happiness. I find more and more these days I have a growing, spreading kind of comfort with myself and therefore with others. I no longer wait to be introduced awkwardly, I reach out my hand and look people in the eye right away. I listen, I ask questions, and we laugh so much together. Even when the conversation gets deep, I'm in it, really in it. I love that I am learning to listen. I love that I am learning to hear that people around me have so much to offer, and I shouldn't fear that. I'm also starting to see, I have a lot to give back, and I love the way that shows in my smile. Later that night, as we sat speaking around a crowded table in the second bar we hit, someone pulled out Apples to Apples. I could not wait to play.
Vivid memories of playing with you at your house on your birthday flashed through my mind. Damn it all. Girl, I have to say it again, I miss you. These signs are playing on my heart strings, evoking memories of you and my fierce but tender love for you. I'm sorry, I can't see this any other way, I don't believe in coincidence anymore, I haven't been able to ever since I met you. I don't know what god above would be so cruel to keep forcing me to remember you this way, to keep my love in my heart so alive and vibrant for you; To keep it growing everyday like a weed that will blossom and allow little foolish children to make wishes. Call me stupid, and hard headed, call me naive or crazed, but there is no way I can stop loving you. For all these reasons, even though I know this time apart is what is right for us both, it pains me to not know what's in your mind and heart. It pains me that you still can't think about seeing me, that even speaking to me might be too much for you just now.
I remember what you said to me, you would try. Sweetest love, take all the time you need. I am filled with patience. I have shed my skin of hostility, and impatience, and domineering arrogance. Whenever you are ready, and one day you will be ready, you can reach out and call me and I will be here. I will be ready and waiting to show you all of my brilliant new colors, and my clear bright eyes so that I might see you as well, really see you. I will be ready to show you I have been working on learning to communicate in the healthiest of ways, so that whatever you wish to share with me, it will be my honor and privilege to have it shared with me. I will be able to stand firm all the better for sloughing all the armor of negativity I once sported and replaced it instead with a open heart, mind, and ears. I will have cut out my once venomous tongue and replaced it with one that speaks only mercy and love. One that only wishes to understand and build bridges, not cast stones or flame throw emotionally destructive napalm.
Patience love, there is no rushing this. You can take all the time you need to discover yourself, and when you are ready to uncover me again, I will be here. I'm going to keep this feeling right here, I'm going to keep sending you my daily prayers for healing and love. I'm going to be right here, not going anywhere out of reach. And if you should ever want me, for any reason, please reach out and let me know. Until then sweet girl, you know where my heart is, it's with you, where it has always been. I am steadfast, I am faithful, and I am patience. Have no fears of that.
Sunday, March 7, 2010
Saturday, March 6, 2010
Twenty Two 03.06.10
Your perfume came in the mail today, I could smell it before I opened the box; that intoxicating scent, forever bound to you in my memory, wound through the cracks in the cardboard and haunted me. Teasing my heart, it conjured your image and suddenly I was tearing through the stubborn box like a feral cat tearing into a fresh kill. The ampules and drams rolled delicately in the box, clinking like suspended cubes of ice. These were more precious to me now than diamonds. But they will not stay with me for long. Five of them will be given away. I will let them go and hopefully, they will find their way to you. Just the same way I am hoping your heart will find its way back to me.
I rolled them in my hand, testing the their weight, feeling the cool smoothness of their espresso colored glass in the whiteness of my palm. One found its home in my fist, gingerly but firmly clutching it to my breast. The rest I returned to their bubble wrap and cardboard nest. With steady fingers I unscrewed the dram, letting its essence escape like a genie uncorked from a bottle. I "slit" my right wrist, passing the whisper of scent from the gaping mouth of the dram over my star tattoo. The fragrance kissed my skin and clung to it as I replaced the cover on the dram. I closed my eyes and brought the inside of my wrist to my face.
Nostalgia, thick and sweet as white honey or molasses, poured over me as I gorged myself on the familiar smell. Every time you drew out that dram and brought it to your neck, you wrists, your breasts, coursed through my mind. My heart swelled and my cunt stirred. I miss you with a sweet kind of aching. Like the pulse of a bruise as it heals, just at the point where the pain of the tender flesh gives way to an odd sensation of pleasure, I am pushing on the wound. I found my stomach reeling and my mouth begins to water. I crave your kiss: deep, languid, and soul quenching.
Do you remember the way it feels to kiss me? Do you remember the way I used to tremble in your arms each time your tongue would glide over mine? The way I would gasp at the pinch of your teeth on my bottom lip, the way I used to cradle your jaw in my hands drawing your face to my lips, drawing your breath into my lungs. Do you remember that holy communion between our souls as they melded and I felt my heart melt love into my soul? Do you ache for me the same way I ache for you? This smell is comforting me, it is pulling me back to a place of love and hope, grounding me here. So long as I can remember these memories, the sights and sounds of you that this perfume evokes I will stay here.
Imagine my surprise the other morning when you texted me, out of the blue. Your words were even more curious: "Read your letter. Will try to answer some of your questions this weekend. This has not been easy, and is still not easy for me. Thank you for dropping off my things." My heart leapt at the words. You were talking to me. Could it be, you were attempting to communicate with me? To allow me some insight to be able to understand you? You told me you didn't feel obligated to respond, and that you did not and could never resent me. And then, you were gone. Sixteen hours later and I have no idea what you meant by that. I am giving you time, all the time you need to approach me.
And I want you to know, when you are ready, I will receive your words with ears that now truly listen. They are unblocked by pride and defensive walls that bend the sound away from your real meaning and turn it into pain I can react to blindly and lash out at. I now possess new ears, the better to hear you with my dear, no longer your big "bad" wolf, but your gentle companion one that wishes to hear your voice and calmly hear all that you have to say. I am waiting for you to speak your mind and heart and know that I want to hear you, really hear you. I am waiting to listen with my heart which still beats your name. And as I wait, I inhale your lingering scent, basking in the unadulterated joy it brings me.
I rolled them in my hand, testing the their weight, feeling the cool smoothness of their espresso colored glass in the whiteness of my palm. One found its home in my fist, gingerly but firmly clutching it to my breast. The rest I returned to their bubble wrap and cardboard nest. With steady fingers I unscrewed the dram, letting its essence escape like a genie uncorked from a bottle. I "slit" my right wrist, passing the whisper of scent from the gaping mouth of the dram over my star tattoo. The fragrance kissed my skin and clung to it as I replaced the cover on the dram. I closed my eyes and brought the inside of my wrist to my face.
Nostalgia, thick and sweet as white honey or molasses, poured over me as I gorged myself on the familiar smell. Every time you drew out that dram and brought it to your neck, you wrists, your breasts, coursed through my mind. My heart swelled and my cunt stirred. I miss you with a sweet kind of aching. Like the pulse of a bruise as it heals, just at the point where the pain of the tender flesh gives way to an odd sensation of pleasure, I am pushing on the wound. I found my stomach reeling and my mouth begins to water. I crave your kiss: deep, languid, and soul quenching.
Do you remember the way it feels to kiss me? Do you remember the way I used to tremble in your arms each time your tongue would glide over mine? The way I would gasp at the pinch of your teeth on my bottom lip, the way I used to cradle your jaw in my hands drawing your face to my lips, drawing your breath into my lungs. Do you remember that holy communion between our souls as they melded and I felt my heart melt love into my soul? Do you ache for me the same way I ache for you? This smell is comforting me, it is pulling me back to a place of love and hope, grounding me here. So long as I can remember these memories, the sights and sounds of you that this perfume evokes I will stay here.
Imagine my surprise the other morning when you texted me, out of the blue. Your words were even more curious: "Read your letter. Will try to answer some of your questions this weekend. This has not been easy, and is still not easy for me. Thank you for dropping off my things." My heart leapt at the words. You were talking to me. Could it be, you were attempting to communicate with me? To allow me some insight to be able to understand you? You told me you didn't feel obligated to respond, and that you did not and could never resent me. And then, you were gone. Sixteen hours later and I have no idea what you meant by that. I am giving you time, all the time you need to approach me.
And I want you to know, when you are ready, I will receive your words with ears that now truly listen. They are unblocked by pride and defensive walls that bend the sound away from your real meaning and turn it into pain I can react to blindly and lash out at. I now possess new ears, the better to hear you with my dear, no longer your big "bad" wolf, but your gentle companion one that wishes to hear your voice and calmly hear all that you have to say. I am waiting for you to speak your mind and heart and know that I want to hear you, really hear you. I am waiting to listen with my heart which still beats your name. And as I wait, I inhale your lingering scent, basking in the unadulterated joy it brings me.
Friday, March 5, 2010
Twenty One 03.05.10
Faith, Grace, Love. You are all these things to me. And most of all, comfort. I have been so lost. I have been so foolish to have pretended I could have kept you from any part of me. To think that you were something I needed protection from is a thought now I find insulting. You know that you touch me like no other person has ever been able to, don't you? You know that the moment I saw you, I knew, I had to be with you. And it wasn't just lust, I think I knew right then; I think I fell in love with you the moment I saw you in that dress, with your aviators on and that cigarette hanging from the filter out of the corner of your mouth. Your curls threatened to knock me on my ass and my knees were already buckling. You have no idea, how I cursed and railed against myself for getting lost on the way to your house. How embarrassed and nervous I was to meet you. I honestly barely even saw your friend. From the moment I laid eyes on you, you were the only thing I could really see clearly. You were the only thing I wanted to see.
Every moment with you plays through my mind and I find a wistful smile spread across my lips, pulling them down at the corners. You know the one, it's that awkward upside down smile, somewhere between a smirk and a sneer that pulls my face into the most comical expressions. I am empty without your love. I am starting to remember that night I told you I loved you for the first time in late June, I am starting to have the sight of a phantom wad of newspaper crinkling and dancing in the breeze. I am sardonically laughing at myself for so many of the things I have done, and yet, I am so confounded. Why have you stayed by me all this time? I suppose its fitting now that you are moving on. You can be like the free wind and just leave me to my own devices in the street. I can find another way to inch uphill and back home to the breeze. Maybe some rain will come and wash me out to sea. Isn't that what they say? All drains lead out to sea. They all lead out to sea.
Curiously, there's a tear in my swallow tattoo, just on the curve of his right wing. I wake up and it's bleeding sometimes, or I'll be walking around and I smell blood before I feel it wetting my shirt. If you asked me how it happened, I honestly wouldn't have a clue. I know only this: I didn't do it to myself this time. I had to tell my therapist about that yesterday, I had to tell her how I used to do these awful things to myself. How I used to slice my skin open just to see if it would bleed. That I used to stab myself with pins and needles and tear out my hair. How I used to lock myself in my closet or my bathroom and bite my flesh until it bruised. She seemed concerned, and asked me if this was still going on. I said no, and that's the physical truth of the matter. But emotionally? Well I suppose I lied then. I suppose I just traded "up" as I got older for thoughts that could cut me open like razor blades instead of the actual artifact.
I suppose I just learned to unleash my sadistic side onto myself and when that spilled over, onto those around me. That would explain a lot I suppose, that would account for a lot. But it doesn't excuse any of it of course. I take full responsibility for any and all of it, I know now those were my actions, and I know now that I wasn't responding appropriately. And then of course she asked me if I had ever had suicidal thoughts. Well, I couldn't start covering my tracks now. No, we were too far into the woods and baby it was getting dark. Ironically, you were with me in those moments. Strange, I brought your letter into the office with me, but I never even got to it before my hour was up. I just sat there with it under my left hand on the couch and when it felt too hard to go on, when I was having trouble relating the more desperate moments of my existence, I felt your words move through me. And my right hand, it would start to tingle and then glow; the hand I used to bind my energy to yours, to vow to protect and honor you with my essence for the rest of time and beyond, no matter what became of us in the end.
Tears fell and my shoulders sagged as I related to her the darker periods of my young life. All the moments I felt I had lost control, the moments I felt completely isolated, without a god to love me or a purpose to guide me. And then of course, I had to explain myself. How does one accurately describe the feeling that brings one to contemplate ending one's life? Let alone actually capitalizing on it. Well I suppose it was logical to me then to explain how I might have been broken down around those periods, what was going on that made me so desperate to escape even the rhythmic falling and rising of my chest when I would breathe. I didn't really explain too much about the first attempt; it's still too hard to explain it without feeling my wrists shrink up in that oddly sympathetic way. It didn't matter, I didn't get far, she wanted to know something.
She asked me why I was never hospitalized. I couldn't answer the question. I don't know why I wasn't hospitalized either, I suppose it comes down to that answer my mother gave me years ago: We were too frightened to know how to help you. In truth, I think their denial was so great, and my illusionist skills so perfected by then at 13 that it wouldn't have mattered. They would have had to be on me round the clock, they would have had to supervise me showering, dressing, undressing, I would never have been allowed access to sharp objects or have any doors that locked at all. I think it was too much to deal with the challenges I was presenting to them already, than to have to admit anymore personal defeats and intercede. To send me away? I think that would have been a final admittance that they couldn't help me. No, better to keep up appearances than to admit I might have been past the point of saving. And then when that reality became violently abundantly clear, we dealt with it like the Irish mob, and kept it all in the family.
To be honest, if you asked them about it today, I think they would just draw a blank stare. I think they'd act like they had absolutely no idea what you were talking about. Ask my mother about the scar removal, ask her about the "fresh start" at Brewster. Ask her about my major depressive episodes where I locked myself in my closet and tore out my hair for hours, sustaining what would be the first of at least 3 mental break downs in my life thus far. She won't remember, or she won't want to talk about it. Believe me, I have tried. They get so bitter, so angry, so defensive when I even try to broach the subject. So when my therapist asked me that question, I couldn't honestly think of any other reason than "You know, I don't think they appreciate scrutiny into private matters? They uh...they really like to pull the denial in tight and just kind of ignore or deny anything that they can't handle." It was a lonely place, to have to admit it plainly, I was on my own then. I had no one to help me, no one to save me. No one but me and at that time, I was far too weak, I was far too ill to see reason.
At least that has changed I suppose. I can say that I haven't had a legitimate suicide attempt in years. I haven't cut in years either. I wonder if you are surprised to know that, that I have not hurt myself that way since you left. Well, I haven't, and I won't. I've thought about it sure, I'll admit that, of course I've thought about it. But I can recognize it for what it is now: a self destructive coping mechanism. It doesn't help me really, it only gives me physical wounds to fester along with my emotional injuries. I'm not centered in that place anymore. Pain is something I would very much like release from. It's had me in its toxic clutches for far too long now. At 26 years old, I should not be able to say I hold onto pain any longer. There may have been periods of my life where it was all around me, circumstantial and self manufactured, but I deserve to be liberated from all that now.
It was with that in mind that when I began to speak about my second attempt in high school and how they interceded properly then, that it occurred to me, I might give her some insight into why my mind would have wound up crawling towards that oblivion once again. I began to describe my relationship with Meg, the way we kind of clung to each other trying to save each other, but ended up drowning in codependency and acrimony instead. How in the end of our relationship, she didn't need me, but I had become the crutch and without her, I didn't know what I was doing anymore. That loosing her was like loosing my only purpose. That loosing her was the final insult in a long line of traumas I had been through in the 3 years before that, never mind all that came before it. I spoke of how I had fallen behind in my courses, how I had become maniac, hyper vigilant to the point of paranoia, and so withdrawn. How depression and rage were wearing me ragged and when she walked away, everything became clear to me: I was not in control of my life, and I couldn't even hold onto love. All I could do was implode in self destructive fury.
Ah then it dawned on me, to explain to her what had happened the year before. Because let's face it, how could something like that NOT contribute to my total breakdown? To anyone looking on, just a year ago things had seemed so different. Just a year before merciful PTSD had set in that winter and allowed me to pour myself into school, securing awards, and prestigious positions in student government and added responsibilities. But even though my mind attempted to shield me, the carrying of that terrible dark secret, that life threatening secret, that horrible despicable secret, had worn me down and finally broken me under its oppressive yoke. Its understandable that months after I was raped, the memories started to flood back. That I would wake from sleep so many nights sweating and shaking with his words ringing in my ears. And he was long gone. No longer around to torment me as he had taken so much pleasure in. He was out there, no doubt, obsessing over a new girl. Plotting ways to destroy her and take something from her that you can't even begin to understand until you have lost it. My faith was broken. My trust in humanity was crushed, and most of all, I hated every inch of myself. Wasn't it understandable that I should suffer with guilt and dejection and crack under the pressure? Wasn't it perfectly reasonable considering that I should attempt to check out early after all that had happened? I don't know what I was expecting from her, I don't think I could have even seen it coming.
She was interjecting with moments of sincere concern. She was telling me "I'm sorry that happened to you, that's a really horrible thing to have happened and it never should have happened to you." And I was completely caught off guard. She may have well have slapped me in that moment. I'm sure I've heard those words come from a thousand lips before when I tell them about my experience, but this time, something was so profound. Something broke and my usual reserve melted away, I cried tears of absolution. It was like I was confessing to a priest and he was forgiving me without any recourse or need for additional penance than to simply confess. When she said that I felt like she was telling me it was OK for me to feel upset about and not always be the stoic one. That yes, it was something that never should have happened to me or to anyone. And that somehow, this wasn't my fault after all, that I didn't deserve all the things he had done and said. The reality broke over me like waves of light. And I felt my right hand shimmering and a warmth I can only describe as your love spread through my arms.
In the end, she told me she understood perfectly why I never told anyone, she told me without me having to tell her the reason why: I didn't feel safe. God the feelings that rolled through me are indescribable. There was heartache, and pain, and sorrow. But there was also relief, and I could feel it distinctly: healing. I felt unburdened. I felt like she helped me take all the sting out of most of his words in that moment, and that she revealed his actions for what they were: vile without a doubt, but with no blame or responsibility cast my way. We had to end our session then. It happened somewhat abruptly, I despise time for that. I told her, I had said to a friend the night before, how I felt bad because this was just one trauma in a long line of them I was going to have to unload and encounter before I could be rid of its negative affects. But she soothed me saying just what I needed to hear, "You just take this at a pace that feels good for you, we're in no rush here. I'm not going anywhere." I cannot describe the mercy that the Gods are visiting upon me in allowing this chance to heal myself, to fortify my soul, and to strike out in bold new ways liberated from a painful past and the negative behaviors I learned to use to cope. Before I left the sanctuary of her office, she leaned forward and looked me in the eye, "Are you going to be alright? Are you OK, leaving now?" she asked me, peering over her spectacles.
"Yes." I found myself saying in reply and actually meaning it. I walked out of there wearing my bleeding tender heart on my sleeve and got into my car. In the parking spot, I turned the keys in the ignition, and Ani Difranco sprang to my eyes. Sweet irony, "Letter to a John" was blaring. You know the song, we used to belt it all the time together. My heart heaved and I sobbed, listening to the lyrics with freshly opened ears. And I felt with each tear, my pain being carried away, my fear being replace with healing, and my past fading back into a place where it no longer haunted my present thoughts so often. How I missed you in that moment. How I wished I could have shared with you my triumph. I was facing these demons head on. I was taking them down and I was putting them in their place, behind me. They would no longer govern my present, and no longer hover in my future like obstacles. I think, you would be so very proud of me, that in those moments I bore all and had the strength to come away from it feeling better, so much better than I have in years.
I do not mean to suggest that that is completely dealt with, no I believe I will need constant work to integrate these things and learn to cope or heal properly over time. But at least there is some hope that there is a path to light and love, and I am finally walking it with each courageous foot fall forward. I did not go home after this like you might expect. Instead, I went out and met up with a friend. We went to the Exploratorium after hours and played like children amongst the exhibits. For a few hours, I forgot all my worries, I forgot all my painful chafing wounds and was just in the moment, enjoying being me. I explored and laughed and talked with strangers. And when I drove home, I stopped on your block to return your things.
After I knew you were not there, I parked in front of your house and wrote you a note. I slipped it into the bag and walked to the front door. A door I no longer had a key to, excepting my heart which pounded your name. No one was awake, but the cherry lights of your living room flooded everything with the light I love so well in your house: amber. I dropped the bag by the front door gingerly, as if its contents were sleeping. For a moment I just stared at the door, the little Valentine's day charm dangling from it. I sent your mother silent wishes that I would see her again and feel her warm embrace. I wondered if your father was finally sleeping, it was "early" yet for us, only midnight. I miss this place so much I thought. And then I realized, I was no longer welcome in it.
I fled, and as I walked out of the small archway, my hand dragged along the ocher bricks. Tears started again, and as I crawled into my driver's seat, my breath caught. I looked back at your house once more and felt my heart breaking again. This was a place that had held such comfort and love for me once. A place I had celebrated birthdays, anniversaries, and just everyday life in. Now it was only a place of memory. Like a beautiful homey tombstone, it loomed above me. I sighed and put my car into gear and then I sped off into the darkness of the night.
Every moment with you plays through my mind and I find a wistful smile spread across my lips, pulling them down at the corners. You know the one, it's that awkward upside down smile, somewhere between a smirk and a sneer that pulls my face into the most comical expressions. I am empty without your love. I am starting to remember that night I told you I loved you for the first time in late June, I am starting to have the sight of a phantom wad of newspaper crinkling and dancing in the breeze. I am sardonically laughing at myself for so many of the things I have done, and yet, I am so confounded. Why have you stayed by me all this time? I suppose its fitting now that you are moving on. You can be like the free wind and just leave me to my own devices in the street. I can find another way to inch uphill and back home to the breeze. Maybe some rain will come and wash me out to sea. Isn't that what they say? All drains lead out to sea. They all lead out to sea.
Curiously, there's a tear in my swallow tattoo, just on the curve of his right wing. I wake up and it's bleeding sometimes, or I'll be walking around and I smell blood before I feel it wetting my shirt. If you asked me how it happened, I honestly wouldn't have a clue. I know only this: I didn't do it to myself this time. I had to tell my therapist about that yesterday, I had to tell her how I used to do these awful things to myself. How I used to slice my skin open just to see if it would bleed. That I used to stab myself with pins and needles and tear out my hair. How I used to lock myself in my closet or my bathroom and bite my flesh until it bruised. She seemed concerned, and asked me if this was still going on. I said no, and that's the physical truth of the matter. But emotionally? Well I suppose I lied then. I suppose I just traded "up" as I got older for thoughts that could cut me open like razor blades instead of the actual artifact.
I suppose I just learned to unleash my sadistic side onto myself and when that spilled over, onto those around me. That would explain a lot I suppose, that would account for a lot. But it doesn't excuse any of it of course. I take full responsibility for any and all of it, I know now those were my actions, and I know now that I wasn't responding appropriately. And then of course she asked me if I had ever had suicidal thoughts. Well, I couldn't start covering my tracks now. No, we were too far into the woods and baby it was getting dark. Ironically, you were with me in those moments. Strange, I brought your letter into the office with me, but I never even got to it before my hour was up. I just sat there with it under my left hand on the couch and when it felt too hard to go on, when I was having trouble relating the more desperate moments of my existence, I felt your words move through me. And my right hand, it would start to tingle and then glow; the hand I used to bind my energy to yours, to vow to protect and honor you with my essence for the rest of time and beyond, no matter what became of us in the end.
Tears fell and my shoulders sagged as I related to her the darker periods of my young life. All the moments I felt I had lost control, the moments I felt completely isolated, without a god to love me or a purpose to guide me. And then of course, I had to explain myself. How does one accurately describe the feeling that brings one to contemplate ending one's life? Let alone actually capitalizing on it. Well I suppose it was logical to me then to explain how I might have been broken down around those periods, what was going on that made me so desperate to escape even the rhythmic falling and rising of my chest when I would breathe. I didn't really explain too much about the first attempt; it's still too hard to explain it without feeling my wrists shrink up in that oddly sympathetic way. It didn't matter, I didn't get far, she wanted to know something.
She asked me why I was never hospitalized. I couldn't answer the question. I don't know why I wasn't hospitalized either, I suppose it comes down to that answer my mother gave me years ago: We were too frightened to know how to help you. In truth, I think their denial was so great, and my illusionist skills so perfected by then at 13 that it wouldn't have mattered. They would have had to be on me round the clock, they would have had to supervise me showering, dressing, undressing, I would never have been allowed access to sharp objects or have any doors that locked at all. I think it was too much to deal with the challenges I was presenting to them already, than to have to admit anymore personal defeats and intercede. To send me away? I think that would have been a final admittance that they couldn't help me. No, better to keep up appearances than to admit I might have been past the point of saving. And then when that reality became violently abundantly clear, we dealt with it like the Irish mob, and kept it all in the family.
To be honest, if you asked them about it today, I think they would just draw a blank stare. I think they'd act like they had absolutely no idea what you were talking about. Ask my mother about the scar removal, ask her about the "fresh start" at Brewster. Ask her about my major depressive episodes where I locked myself in my closet and tore out my hair for hours, sustaining what would be the first of at least 3 mental break downs in my life thus far. She won't remember, or she won't want to talk about it. Believe me, I have tried. They get so bitter, so angry, so defensive when I even try to broach the subject. So when my therapist asked me that question, I couldn't honestly think of any other reason than "You know, I don't think they appreciate scrutiny into private matters? They uh...they really like to pull the denial in tight and just kind of ignore or deny anything that they can't handle." It was a lonely place, to have to admit it plainly, I was on my own then. I had no one to help me, no one to save me. No one but me and at that time, I was far too weak, I was far too ill to see reason.
At least that has changed I suppose. I can say that I haven't had a legitimate suicide attempt in years. I haven't cut in years either. I wonder if you are surprised to know that, that I have not hurt myself that way since you left. Well, I haven't, and I won't. I've thought about it sure, I'll admit that, of course I've thought about it. But I can recognize it for what it is now: a self destructive coping mechanism. It doesn't help me really, it only gives me physical wounds to fester along with my emotional injuries. I'm not centered in that place anymore. Pain is something I would very much like release from. It's had me in its toxic clutches for far too long now. At 26 years old, I should not be able to say I hold onto pain any longer. There may have been periods of my life where it was all around me, circumstantial and self manufactured, but I deserve to be liberated from all that now.
It was with that in mind that when I began to speak about my second attempt in high school and how they interceded properly then, that it occurred to me, I might give her some insight into why my mind would have wound up crawling towards that oblivion once again. I began to describe my relationship with Meg, the way we kind of clung to each other trying to save each other, but ended up drowning in codependency and acrimony instead. How in the end of our relationship, she didn't need me, but I had become the crutch and without her, I didn't know what I was doing anymore. That loosing her was like loosing my only purpose. That loosing her was the final insult in a long line of traumas I had been through in the 3 years before that, never mind all that came before it. I spoke of how I had fallen behind in my courses, how I had become maniac, hyper vigilant to the point of paranoia, and so withdrawn. How depression and rage were wearing me ragged and when she walked away, everything became clear to me: I was not in control of my life, and I couldn't even hold onto love. All I could do was implode in self destructive fury.
Ah then it dawned on me, to explain to her what had happened the year before. Because let's face it, how could something like that NOT contribute to my total breakdown? To anyone looking on, just a year ago things had seemed so different. Just a year before merciful PTSD had set in that winter and allowed me to pour myself into school, securing awards, and prestigious positions in student government and added responsibilities. But even though my mind attempted to shield me, the carrying of that terrible dark secret, that life threatening secret, that horrible despicable secret, had worn me down and finally broken me under its oppressive yoke. Its understandable that months after I was raped, the memories started to flood back. That I would wake from sleep so many nights sweating and shaking with his words ringing in my ears. And he was long gone. No longer around to torment me as he had taken so much pleasure in. He was out there, no doubt, obsessing over a new girl. Plotting ways to destroy her and take something from her that you can't even begin to understand until you have lost it. My faith was broken. My trust in humanity was crushed, and most of all, I hated every inch of myself. Wasn't it understandable that I should suffer with guilt and dejection and crack under the pressure? Wasn't it perfectly reasonable considering that I should attempt to check out early after all that had happened? I don't know what I was expecting from her, I don't think I could have even seen it coming.
She was interjecting with moments of sincere concern. She was telling me "I'm sorry that happened to you, that's a really horrible thing to have happened and it never should have happened to you." And I was completely caught off guard. She may have well have slapped me in that moment. I'm sure I've heard those words come from a thousand lips before when I tell them about my experience, but this time, something was so profound. Something broke and my usual reserve melted away, I cried tears of absolution. It was like I was confessing to a priest and he was forgiving me without any recourse or need for additional penance than to simply confess. When she said that I felt like she was telling me it was OK for me to feel upset about and not always be the stoic one. That yes, it was something that never should have happened to me or to anyone. And that somehow, this wasn't my fault after all, that I didn't deserve all the things he had done and said. The reality broke over me like waves of light. And I felt my right hand shimmering and a warmth I can only describe as your love spread through my arms.
In the end, she told me she understood perfectly why I never told anyone, she told me without me having to tell her the reason why: I didn't feel safe. God the feelings that rolled through me are indescribable. There was heartache, and pain, and sorrow. But there was also relief, and I could feel it distinctly: healing. I felt unburdened. I felt like she helped me take all the sting out of most of his words in that moment, and that she revealed his actions for what they were: vile without a doubt, but with no blame or responsibility cast my way. We had to end our session then. It happened somewhat abruptly, I despise time for that. I told her, I had said to a friend the night before, how I felt bad because this was just one trauma in a long line of them I was going to have to unload and encounter before I could be rid of its negative affects. But she soothed me saying just what I needed to hear, "You just take this at a pace that feels good for you, we're in no rush here. I'm not going anywhere." I cannot describe the mercy that the Gods are visiting upon me in allowing this chance to heal myself, to fortify my soul, and to strike out in bold new ways liberated from a painful past and the negative behaviors I learned to use to cope. Before I left the sanctuary of her office, she leaned forward and looked me in the eye, "Are you going to be alright? Are you OK, leaving now?" she asked me, peering over her spectacles.
"Yes." I found myself saying in reply and actually meaning it. I walked out of there wearing my bleeding tender heart on my sleeve and got into my car. In the parking spot, I turned the keys in the ignition, and Ani Difranco sprang to my eyes. Sweet irony, "Letter to a John" was blaring. You know the song, we used to belt it all the time together. My heart heaved and I sobbed, listening to the lyrics with freshly opened ears. And I felt with each tear, my pain being carried away, my fear being replace with healing, and my past fading back into a place where it no longer haunted my present thoughts so often. How I missed you in that moment. How I wished I could have shared with you my triumph. I was facing these demons head on. I was taking them down and I was putting them in their place, behind me. They would no longer govern my present, and no longer hover in my future like obstacles. I think, you would be so very proud of me, that in those moments I bore all and had the strength to come away from it feeling better, so much better than I have in years.
I do not mean to suggest that that is completely dealt with, no I believe I will need constant work to integrate these things and learn to cope or heal properly over time. But at least there is some hope that there is a path to light and love, and I am finally walking it with each courageous foot fall forward. I did not go home after this like you might expect. Instead, I went out and met up with a friend. We went to the Exploratorium after hours and played like children amongst the exhibits. For a few hours, I forgot all my worries, I forgot all my painful chafing wounds and was just in the moment, enjoying being me. I explored and laughed and talked with strangers. And when I drove home, I stopped on your block to return your things.
After I knew you were not there, I parked in front of your house and wrote you a note. I slipped it into the bag and walked to the front door. A door I no longer had a key to, excepting my heart which pounded your name. No one was awake, but the cherry lights of your living room flooded everything with the light I love so well in your house: amber. I dropped the bag by the front door gingerly, as if its contents were sleeping. For a moment I just stared at the door, the little Valentine's day charm dangling from it. I sent your mother silent wishes that I would see her again and feel her warm embrace. I wondered if your father was finally sleeping, it was "early" yet for us, only midnight. I miss this place so much I thought. And then I realized, I was no longer welcome in it.
I fled, and as I walked out of the small archway, my hand dragged along the ocher bricks. Tears started again, and as I crawled into my driver's seat, my breath caught. I looked back at your house once more and felt my heart breaking again. This was a place that had held such comfort and love for me once. A place I had celebrated birthdays, anniversaries, and just everyday life in. Now it was only a place of memory. Like a beautiful homey tombstone, it loomed above me. I sighed and put my car into gear and then I sped off into the darkness of the night.
Twenty 03.04.10
I know I am breaking all the rules of "breaking up" with you. I know I should be deleting your phone number, but I can't bear to do it. I should throw away everything you ever gave me, but I cherish each and every scrap of paper and gift you ever gave me like they are the fingers on my right hand. I WILL NEVER BURN A SINGLE LETTER YOU EVER GAVE ME, NEVER EVER, EVER. I should stop acting like you are ever going to contact me, because I should know better by now after what you said: this isn't hurting you so badly. I knew the moment you spoke to me on Monday I should just STOP because you probably want nothing to do with me and you are just being nice to me because that's how kind and compassionate you are. I should stop having my heart skip a beat every time I hear your name and also every time I say it.
I should stop telling you I love you.
I knew that would shut you up tonight when you were texting me. I knew if I said that you'd stop on a dime. That it might even piss you off. I knew that by saying it I could be fucking EVERYTHING up. Just like I knew when I dropped off some of your things tonight that I shouldn't have left you that note. I KNOW I SHOULD STOP SAYING I WANT TO BE WITH YOU AGAIN. I KNOW I SHOULD STOP TELLING YOU I MISS YOU. I KNOW I SHOULD JUST SHUT THE FUCK UP AND DISAPPEAR OUT OF YOUR LIFE FOREVER IF I KNOW WHAT'S GOOD FOR US BOTH. I should change my phone number so you can't call me. I should move and not give you my address. I should stop talking to our mutual friends and just surrender them all to you so you never have to hear about me again. I should just know that you will never come to therapy with me or ask me to another of your sessions. I should accept the fact that I will never see your mother and father again and know what it's like for them to call me "B" and say they missed me. I know that I should be waving the white flag of defeat stained with the sweat of my desperation.
I should be acting like I'm so happy and free. I should be acting like anything remotely related to you doesn't concern me. I shouldn't care that you are out having fun, without me. I should stop thinking about how I am having fun without you even though I wish you could have some of these experiences with me because I know you would love them and I adore the way your face lights up when you are having fun. I should stop thinking about you all the damn time. I shouldn't be thinking about you when I'm out with my friends the way you pop into my mind and I find myself almost saying "Sasha would love that!" I should stop feeling my being glow with love when I remember your eyes, your smile, your hair, your scent, your body.
I shouldn't be thinking about you when I touch myself, when I come I should stop whispering your name. I should be filling my mind with faceless women I have never met and have yet to fuck. But the thought of touching anyone but you makes my cunt dry up like the Sahara and a bleeding stabbing pain rent through my chest. Don't even ask me what happens when I think about someone else fucking you. You don't want to know...it only ends bloody, but not for you or for them, for me. I shouldn't be thinking about you when I walk my dog, or pay my bills, or park my car.
But I do.
I know it sounds like I'm obsessed, I'm not. You have nothing to fear with me I would never turn stalker or psycho. I know you have had your fill of that already. I assure you I am more afraid of you than you will ever be of me because you have the power to level me with total silence. I'm sure if I were you and saw me right now, and read all the pathetic whining and lamentation in these poorly written letters, I would be over me like that. Snap your fingers, I'd be done with me. I'm sure that this is exactly what you always wanted out of me: pathetic, needy, disgusting me. I'm sure that these letters are so compelling to return to each day, just to hear me BEG like a beaten dog out loud on the internet for you to return to me. I am sure that this whole spectacle makes me look like some kind of crazy groveling moron, that you are just holding your breath until I leave you alone finally and you can get some peace.
Even this, right now, is me breaking the "breaking up" rules. I shouldn't be telling you this shit. I should spare you the melodrama and leave myself cloaked in mystery so you might come back for more. But I just can't help it. I could never deceive you. I want you to know what is going on, how I feel, how I still love you and want you. I want you to know that I am healing, but also that I am in pain without you by my side. I want you to know that I will never be able to follow the "breaking up" rules with you. I will not be able to not tell you how I love you in either these ridiculous letters or my broken wavering voice when I cry about you. And maybe for these reasons you SHOULD know, so that when you finally decide to be rid of me, you can speak with finality and tell me "Get the fuck out of my face, I will never want you again."
When I got home last night, already a fresh migraine brewing in my neck and skull, I tore through the bag you left for me. And I was the very spirit of confusion.
So many questions ran through my mind. Questions you will not answer until I see you again and probably then I will chicken out and never ask you...
Why did you give me the teachings of Michael, are you rejecting that I was ever your essence twin? Did you forget you said you felt like I was your essence twin too? Was 3 weeks all it took for you to "wake up" and realize you didn't feel that way anymore? Now that you are done with me are you no longer spiritually inclined towards the path you started down? Did you abandon Wicca? Am I fool for having shown you any of the mysteries that I have learned over the years, for binding my energy to you? Have you already forgotten what your fairy guide said to you about me that night up at Skyline when we both had a chance encounter with the divine? Have you forgotten the tarot reading I gave you on Yule? Did you think the Tarot reading I did on day nine was full of shit? Have you put all that behind you, just like you are putting me behind you?
Why did you give me Transformers and Pirate coloring books? Why did you give me that Spider man toy? Did you mean to leave one of your bracelets in the bag? The blue Chinese one with the flowers inlaid in brass and colored stone? Did you know that your lip liner and your express buttons fell into the bottom of the batman bag you gave me those things in? Were those toys and games supposed to be gifts? How long did you have them for? Are you having trouble, like I am NOT buying things I know you would like when I walk by them? Only stopping to put them away when I catch myself at the register or my friends ask me, "what are you doing?"
Why did you return the things I gave to you? They were yours...I don't know why you would do that to me, are you mocking me? Why did you return the Pirate shirt I gave you? Why did you return the Syd CD I bought for you and gave you back the day after you broke up with me? Why did you give me the Anne Rule book and the FBI profiler books? Why did you put it all in a trash bag? Was that just to keep it out of the rain? Or was that something more symbolic I was supposed to infer? Were these reminders of me just "trash" you had accumulated over the last 2 years and you were finally throwing it out?
And the only question I really am dying to know the answer to: WHY did you give me the key to the handcuffs back attached to the "Vegas" key chain I brought to you the first time I met you??? Why would you give back the first thing I ever gave you? You kept the cuffs. I know you have another key because I bought them for us and they came with a pair of keys. I even know where you keep it, around a necklace chain, I used to love to see you wear it around your neck like that. Why return that to me? Is that supposed to mean something? Is that supposed to mean something?? Am I supposed to know that it means you still want me? That you are letting me keep the key to your heart? That someday it will be reunited with those handcuffs? I don't want them back, I gave them to you to remember me by, to know that you could keep the keys and the cuffs because my heart is bound to you by more then metal loops. It's bound to you with my soul's light.
Please don't think of me with anger or irritation. Please don't say a nice word to me, it's only encouraging this insane hope I have that you want me. It's only keeping me enthralled with you when I know, I know you must just be waiting for the day you can be fully rid of me with baited breath. You already told me: this isn't that hard for you. I know, you know you're doing the right thing. I know there must be sweet relief and comfort in that that knowledge I will never know. It must be so very different for you, it must be easy for you to just put me out of mind and heart and just move on. You must never spend your time with backwards glances or hopes for the future. But I can't say the same because you, you make me feel love in every atom of my being. And I never want that to stop.
I can't believe that you said you think I will love anyone more than I love you. I can't believe that you implied I would move on someday and stop loving you. I was so hurt, so crestfallen when you said that. Is that what you think? Is that what you really honestly believe? You think I could just get over you and move on and find someone that I would love better? Are you insane? There is no one that I want in my heart and my soul more than you. There wouldn't even be a chance in hell that I would turn my eyes away from you and try to see that love reflected in anyone else. I know it will never be possible for me to move my heart away from loving you. I will only be able to settle for something less than what I want, what my soul finds gratification in, what my body will sing for.
Last night I read your letter. Dear god I think I've read it 80 times since. Why do give me any hope to hold onto? Why are you kind and beautiful and loving? Why can't you just expose me for the idiot I am? Why can't you just rip my tender flesh and eviscerate me so that I can crawl away to lick my wounds while I bleed out? Why can't you just tell me to go to fucking hell? Why would you give me that key back? Why would you write what you wrote in your letter to me, that this is not "goodbye"?? That I am in your heart and your thoughts? That you are inspired by me still? What the hell is inspiring about this? You think it's inspiring that I should love you past the point of reason? That loving you still, even though you are not with me and may never love me again brings me joy and peace I cannot fathom?
You told me you don't want me to move on, and that its a selfish part of you that feels that way. Bullshit. I'm the selfish one. Because I keep hoping and praying and wringing my hands like dirty dish rags wishing that one day we'll be together again. I keep hoping and praying you don't move on and find someone else to take your hand. I keep hoping and praying that you'll see me and I'll look in your eyes and know that you are still in love with me and want to be with me again, but that you are just scared. Just a little gun shy because you don't want it to get messed up again. I keep hoping and praying that you will see me and still think I'm beautiful, that you will still want me, that you will reach out and kiss me. I keep hoping and praying that you will write to me again someday the way you used to. I think about never having another letter from you like those and I DIE INSIDE A THOUSAND TIMES. I keep thinking that one day you might write like that, OR BETTER, for some new girl and I just want to close my eyes forever and never wake up.
I know, I'm breaking all the rules with you. I know I fucked up tonight telling you I love you. I know I'm probably driving you away from me and I am just a fucking asshole. I know I'm not what you need or want. I know, I should stop. I should stop, but I can't. I love you too fucking much. I can't just turn it off and make it go away. And I know that with the way I feel, I will never stop feeling this way as long as we are not lovers. I know that I've lost my best friend, my true love, and my essence twin. I know I should stop hoping that you'll come back, but I CANNOT DO THAT.
So I'll just ask you to understand, and show me some compassion from time to time. Show me a little tenderness and some heartfelt sympathy since this is not hard on you but it's fucking killing me. I am fully aware that it sounds like I'm crazy, like I'm being a bastard by whining to you about how heartbroken I am, that through all this I am making myself so unattractive the only way you would come back is either if you deluded yourself or you really enjoyed charity cases. Please understand my intentions are pure and filled with love. I am not trying to manipulate you, invade your space, or guilt trip you. I think about how you used to talk about her writing to you and how it used to piss you off and I just start crying thinking that if you don't already feel that way now, you SURELY will soon.
Please....please understand, I still love you. Please understand that I just want to be good for you, and not something ugly that you grow to hate. Help me understand what that is.
Help me understand...why am I holding this key?
I should stop telling you I love you.
I knew that would shut you up tonight when you were texting me. I knew if I said that you'd stop on a dime. That it might even piss you off. I knew that by saying it I could be fucking EVERYTHING up. Just like I knew when I dropped off some of your things tonight that I shouldn't have left you that note. I KNOW I SHOULD STOP SAYING I WANT TO BE WITH YOU AGAIN. I KNOW I SHOULD STOP TELLING YOU I MISS YOU. I KNOW I SHOULD JUST SHUT THE FUCK UP AND DISAPPEAR OUT OF YOUR LIFE FOREVER IF I KNOW WHAT'S GOOD FOR US BOTH. I should change my phone number so you can't call me. I should move and not give you my address. I should stop talking to our mutual friends and just surrender them all to you so you never have to hear about me again. I should just know that you will never come to therapy with me or ask me to another of your sessions. I should accept the fact that I will never see your mother and father again and know what it's like for them to call me "B" and say they missed me. I know that I should be waving the white flag of defeat stained with the sweat of my desperation.
I should be acting like I'm so happy and free. I should be acting like anything remotely related to you doesn't concern me. I shouldn't care that you are out having fun, without me. I should stop thinking about how I am having fun without you even though I wish you could have some of these experiences with me because I know you would love them and I adore the way your face lights up when you are having fun. I should stop thinking about you all the damn time. I shouldn't be thinking about you when I'm out with my friends the way you pop into my mind and I find myself almost saying "Sasha would love that!" I should stop feeling my being glow with love when I remember your eyes, your smile, your hair, your scent, your body.
I shouldn't be thinking about you when I touch myself, when I come I should stop whispering your name. I should be filling my mind with faceless women I have never met and have yet to fuck. But the thought of touching anyone but you makes my cunt dry up like the Sahara and a bleeding stabbing pain rent through my chest. Don't even ask me what happens when I think about someone else fucking you. You don't want to know...it only ends bloody, but not for you or for them, for me. I shouldn't be thinking about you when I walk my dog, or pay my bills, or park my car.
But I do.
I know it sounds like I'm obsessed, I'm not. You have nothing to fear with me I would never turn stalker or psycho. I know you have had your fill of that already. I assure you I am more afraid of you than you will ever be of me because you have the power to level me with total silence. I'm sure if I were you and saw me right now, and read all the pathetic whining and lamentation in these poorly written letters, I would be over me like that. Snap your fingers, I'd be done with me. I'm sure that this is exactly what you always wanted out of me: pathetic, needy, disgusting me. I'm sure that these letters are so compelling to return to each day, just to hear me BEG like a beaten dog out loud on the internet for you to return to me. I am sure that this whole spectacle makes me look like some kind of crazy groveling moron, that you are just holding your breath until I leave you alone finally and you can get some peace.
Even this, right now, is me breaking the "breaking up" rules. I shouldn't be telling you this shit. I should spare you the melodrama and leave myself cloaked in mystery so you might come back for more. But I just can't help it. I could never deceive you. I want you to know what is going on, how I feel, how I still love you and want you. I want you to know that I am healing, but also that I am in pain without you by my side. I want you to know that I will never be able to follow the "breaking up" rules with you. I will not be able to not tell you how I love you in either these ridiculous letters or my broken wavering voice when I cry about you. And maybe for these reasons you SHOULD know, so that when you finally decide to be rid of me, you can speak with finality and tell me "Get the fuck out of my face, I will never want you again."
When I got home last night, already a fresh migraine brewing in my neck and skull, I tore through the bag you left for me. And I was the very spirit of confusion.
So many questions ran through my mind. Questions you will not answer until I see you again and probably then I will chicken out and never ask you...
Why did you give me the teachings of Michael, are you rejecting that I was ever your essence twin? Did you forget you said you felt like I was your essence twin too? Was 3 weeks all it took for you to "wake up" and realize you didn't feel that way anymore? Now that you are done with me are you no longer spiritually inclined towards the path you started down? Did you abandon Wicca? Am I fool for having shown you any of the mysteries that I have learned over the years, for binding my energy to you? Have you already forgotten what your fairy guide said to you about me that night up at Skyline when we both had a chance encounter with the divine? Have you forgotten the tarot reading I gave you on Yule? Did you think the Tarot reading I did on day nine was full of shit? Have you put all that behind you, just like you are putting me behind you?
Why did you give me Transformers and Pirate coloring books? Why did you give me that Spider man toy? Did you mean to leave one of your bracelets in the bag? The blue Chinese one with the flowers inlaid in brass and colored stone? Did you know that your lip liner and your express buttons fell into the bottom of the batman bag you gave me those things in? Were those toys and games supposed to be gifts? How long did you have them for? Are you having trouble, like I am NOT buying things I know you would like when I walk by them? Only stopping to put them away when I catch myself at the register or my friends ask me, "what are you doing?"
Why did you return the things I gave to you? They were yours...I don't know why you would do that to me, are you mocking me? Why did you return the Pirate shirt I gave you? Why did you return the Syd CD I bought for you and gave you back the day after you broke up with me? Why did you give me the Anne Rule book and the FBI profiler books? Why did you put it all in a trash bag? Was that just to keep it out of the rain? Or was that something more symbolic I was supposed to infer? Were these reminders of me just "trash" you had accumulated over the last 2 years and you were finally throwing it out?
And the only question I really am dying to know the answer to: WHY did you give me the key to the handcuffs back attached to the "Vegas" key chain I brought to you the first time I met you??? Why would you give back the first thing I ever gave you? You kept the cuffs. I know you have another key because I bought them for us and they came with a pair of keys. I even know where you keep it, around a necklace chain, I used to love to see you wear it around your neck like that. Why return that to me? Is that supposed to mean something? Is that supposed to mean something?? Am I supposed to know that it means you still want me? That you are letting me keep the key to your heart? That someday it will be reunited with those handcuffs? I don't want them back, I gave them to you to remember me by, to know that you could keep the keys and the cuffs because my heart is bound to you by more then metal loops. It's bound to you with my soul's light.
Please don't think of me with anger or irritation. Please don't say a nice word to me, it's only encouraging this insane hope I have that you want me. It's only keeping me enthralled with you when I know, I know you must just be waiting for the day you can be fully rid of me with baited breath. You already told me: this isn't that hard for you. I know, you know you're doing the right thing. I know there must be sweet relief and comfort in that that knowledge I will never know. It must be so very different for you, it must be easy for you to just put me out of mind and heart and just move on. You must never spend your time with backwards glances or hopes for the future. But I can't say the same because you, you make me feel love in every atom of my being. And I never want that to stop.
I can't believe that you said you think I will love anyone more than I love you. I can't believe that you implied I would move on someday and stop loving you. I was so hurt, so crestfallen when you said that. Is that what you think? Is that what you really honestly believe? You think I could just get over you and move on and find someone that I would love better? Are you insane? There is no one that I want in my heart and my soul more than you. There wouldn't even be a chance in hell that I would turn my eyes away from you and try to see that love reflected in anyone else. I know it will never be possible for me to move my heart away from loving you. I will only be able to settle for something less than what I want, what my soul finds gratification in, what my body will sing for.
Last night I read your letter. Dear god I think I've read it 80 times since. Why do give me any hope to hold onto? Why are you kind and beautiful and loving? Why can't you just expose me for the idiot I am? Why can't you just rip my tender flesh and eviscerate me so that I can crawl away to lick my wounds while I bleed out? Why can't you just tell me to go to fucking hell? Why would you give me that key back? Why would you write what you wrote in your letter to me, that this is not "goodbye"?? That I am in your heart and your thoughts? That you are inspired by me still? What the hell is inspiring about this? You think it's inspiring that I should love you past the point of reason? That loving you still, even though you are not with me and may never love me again brings me joy and peace I cannot fathom?
You told me you don't want me to move on, and that its a selfish part of you that feels that way. Bullshit. I'm the selfish one. Because I keep hoping and praying and wringing my hands like dirty dish rags wishing that one day we'll be together again. I keep hoping and praying you don't move on and find someone else to take your hand. I keep hoping and praying that you'll see me and I'll look in your eyes and know that you are still in love with me and want to be with me again, but that you are just scared. Just a little gun shy because you don't want it to get messed up again. I keep hoping and praying that you will see me and still think I'm beautiful, that you will still want me, that you will reach out and kiss me. I keep hoping and praying that you will write to me again someday the way you used to. I think about never having another letter from you like those and I DIE INSIDE A THOUSAND TIMES. I keep thinking that one day you might write like that, OR BETTER, for some new girl and I just want to close my eyes forever and never wake up.
I know, I'm breaking all the rules with you. I know I fucked up tonight telling you I love you. I know I'm probably driving you away from me and I am just a fucking asshole. I know I'm not what you need or want. I know, I should stop. I should stop, but I can't. I love you too fucking much. I can't just turn it off and make it go away. And I know that with the way I feel, I will never stop feeling this way as long as we are not lovers. I know that I've lost my best friend, my true love, and my essence twin. I know I should stop hoping that you'll come back, but I CANNOT DO THAT.
So I'll just ask you to understand, and show me some compassion from time to time. Show me a little tenderness and some heartfelt sympathy since this is not hard on you but it's fucking killing me. I am fully aware that it sounds like I'm crazy, like I'm being a bastard by whining to you about how heartbroken I am, that through all this I am making myself so unattractive the only way you would come back is either if you deluded yourself or you really enjoyed charity cases. Please understand my intentions are pure and filled with love. I am not trying to manipulate you, invade your space, or guilt trip you. I think about how you used to talk about her writing to you and how it used to piss you off and I just start crying thinking that if you don't already feel that way now, you SURELY will soon.
Please....please understand, I still love you. Please understand that I just want to be good for you, and not something ugly that you grow to hate. Help me understand what that is.
Help me understand...why am I holding this key?
Thursday, March 4, 2010
Nineteen 03.03.10
Your letter is waiting at home for me. I asked my sick mother and my old limping father to pull it in out of the rain. Along with my shit you returned to me- just in time- just under three weeks since you left me. Yes, I asked my sick, voiceless mother and my cancer ridden Cancer of a father to pick up those things, which I hope still smell like you, and bring them inside. Home.
I'm afraid that I will thrill to read you words, even if what they tell me is NOT what my stubborn heart wants to hear: Let go. Get lost. But I know already that what you will have written will be as painfully beautiful as the sound of 20 violins swelling to me. And you know how I go apeshit for violins. String me up and hum across me with a taut but fraying bow that only you can articulate. And I will cry for you.
I will read that letter over and over trying to make the words fit together so that it says what my heart wants to hear: Love me, come back, come home. Come in out of the rain and dry your weeping eyes on my heaving bosom. Cradle yourself here in my embrace and know that I still am in love with you and I have always wanted you here.
Yes, I asked them to pull those things and your letter with them into our home and give them shelter. But I have miles and hours before I will unfold your letter and feel my heart break all over again at the sight of your writing. Writing I used to think was too pig tailed curly for me to ever read. But eventually it worked its way into my skull, and now I can read it with a fluent kind of grace. Writing that you have to curl your left hand about to write it the same way you would wrap one hand around me and hold onto my hips bones while you poured your love into me.
Is it all lost?
Were the words you spoke on Monday night just an illusion? Were they just you "letting me down easy" and me refusing to hear it over the violin crescendo of when you said "I am still in love with you." Your letter is waiting at home for me and I am driving-white knuckled-speeding back to it the way I used to speed to see you. Your letter is waiting at home for me and I am going home to an empty bed.
I'm afraid that I will thrill to read you words, even if what they tell me is NOT what my stubborn heart wants to hear: Let go. Get lost. But I know already that what you will have written will be as painfully beautiful as the sound of 20 violins swelling to me. And you know how I go apeshit for violins. String me up and hum across me with a taut but fraying bow that only you can articulate. And I will cry for you.
I will read that letter over and over trying to make the words fit together so that it says what my heart wants to hear: Love me, come back, come home. Come in out of the rain and dry your weeping eyes on my heaving bosom. Cradle yourself here in my embrace and know that I still am in love with you and I have always wanted you here.
Yes, I asked them to pull those things and your letter with them into our home and give them shelter. But I have miles and hours before I will unfold your letter and feel my heart break all over again at the sight of your writing. Writing I used to think was too pig tailed curly for me to ever read. But eventually it worked its way into my skull, and now I can read it with a fluent kind of grace. Writing that you have to curl your left hand about to write it the same way you would wrap one hand around me and hold onto my hips bones while you poured your love into me.
Is it all lost?
Were the words you spoke on Monday night just an illusion? Were they just you "letting me down easy" and me refusing to hear it over the violin crescendo of when you said "I am still in love with you." Your letter is waiting at home for me and I am driving-white knuckled-speeding back to it the way I used to speed to see you. Your letter is waiting at home for me and I am going home to an empty bed.
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Eighteen 03.02.10
Tonight I was full of sound and laughter. I was out in the world, making a ruckus and it felt just like old times. I did impossible things to describe, ridiculous makes you feel alive in no other kind of way things. Things I was even amazed at myself for doing. Tonight I roamed the streets of San Francisco more sure of myself than I have been in a long time. I met new people, I made new connections, I reunited with some old characters that made me remember a time I felt more alive and full of promise. A time in my life when I still had hope in my heart to imagine being able to change the world just by being in it.
And you, you were never far from my mind. As I looked out over the twinkling amber and cherry city lights of San Fransisco from the black gravel lined oases of rooftop views, I wore you in my heart. You were there, beaming from me like a tattoo made of Opaline light showing through my skin. From the lofty, chilly spaces of San Francisco rooftops I huddled in loose circles of people, and my heart called to you. I stood in circles made of old friends and new faces that were populated by the clunking of Tecate cans, fist bumps, and incessant absurd laughter of those who were really surrendering to the moment and enjoying the sheer spontaneity of it. Yes indeed, this was more like myself than I had felt in a great while.
Still, I had you with me. And when I spoke, you peppered the conversation as easily as you always have, because your name is sheer joy when it slips from my lips. Don't worry, I didn't call you mine, not in any way you wouldn't approve of. But you could have been mine in that moment, I would have been proud to share it with you. I met artists, and poets, and carpenters, and people that worked in social services. I played pool and actually seemed to know what I was doing half the time. And there were moments, strange surreal moments, where I caught a glimpse of me from the outside; hovering somewhere off to the side, and I loved what I saw. I was talking, I was listening, I was looking people in the eye. I was happy to be there and for once that voice that constantly berates me took small vacations and allowed me to slip into a kind of confidence I loved so much.
Still, I had some hiccups. I still caught myself slipping into that place where I was about to maniacally go on and on, but logically I would finish my sentence and then ask the other person to tell me something about them. I caught myself more than once wringing my hands absently, but still noticeably enough to give me pause and stop. I caught myself tugging on my earlobe and rubbing the back of my neck with large flat palmed strokes. These are a few new ticks I have developed since I thrust myself into social situations I am unaccustomed to now. Namely that is, any at all. But undaunted I stayed in the moment, harnessing the power of genuinely loving being in it to keep me from shutting down and fading into obscurity. I consider these ticks to be a good sign, it means I am pushing my comfort zone, trying to expand. I have dubbed them the cramps and strains of my emotional growing pains. I just keep walking them off, taking time to remind myself to calm down, to enjoy right now, and just be present to the moment. I free myself of expectation and act authentically, with no burning desire to impress, but just a sincere wish to be organic with myself and others.
I would say confidently it paid off in spades. I laughed so hard I almost cried and my jaw ached from smiling. I gave more hugs in one night than I remember giving anyone in nearly a lifetime each embrace asserting I really was a human being and I could connect with people around me. I felt like I had been living in a dark cave of desperation and self hatred and someone had pushed me into the light and filled me with a sweeping kind of curious wonder. I was in love with every moment. Just the mere act of imagining that this could really be my life, the one I wanted to lead, and then realizing that I was suddenly living it was like a total a transistor blowing mind fuck. I met people who owned comic shops and other folk that drew comics. I met other poets that spend their nights like I do, capturing the elusive spirit of spoken word with the prison of the written.
I talked about my plans for APE, the paintings I am working on, and the Slam nights I attend and I felt alive. For once I was being the person I have always violently wanted to be and it felt astonishing. And through it all, my heart was coursing your name. As I lined up for each shot around the pool table, I imagined you were somehow watching, from some place overhead like a fly on the wall. And I felt myself swell with pride. Here was the woman you fell in love with, here was the woman underneath all the baggage all along, the one you have always seen through to so easily. As I navigated around the crowded bar, or reached out my hand to shake someone else's hand, I was able to see your face more clearly in my memory. It was as if it might be a premonition of days in the future, when I might be out some place with my friends and that I might text you, and you might show up with your friends and we could revel in the chance to widen the ranks of our comrades together. Or other times, I imagined easily that I was out with my friends for the night, and that it might be possible that some day I might leave this place and find my way home to you. It made me see the experience of being independent and autonomous would give our relationship strength and a deep sense of personal fulfillment.
The thought that I could be out in the world this way was exhilarating. When I thought about sharing that world with you, about having you have your own experiences and how that would give us more to share, more to talk about with each other, more to discover about one another; it made my heart swim with an infatuation with the future that made me feel like swooning. Instead of feeling anxious about my future, I felt at peace with it, like it was mine to shape and influence with my actions instead of my fears. And it made me realize, I want to share that future with you. And I can't describe it, it's not even just a simple wish, it's so much deeper than that. There's a kind of certainty that the chorus to our song, Overlap, perfectly describes our love. You and I have enough differences between us to give us strength and there is sweet comfort where we overlap.
How wondrous that even now, when all hope could be lost, I feel like the differences between us are compelling enough to make me view you through fresh eyes. Unencumbered by my projected fears and insecurities about myself, I see you more clearly than I ever have. And I am dying to know all about you. But it's alright, I'm not worried. We're both out here doing what we need to be doing. We're finding ourselves, so that we can bring our all to the table, and really show each other who we are. I know you think I will move on. I dare you to show up one day, and let me see you. I promise I'll want you more than you ever thought possible. I know you, but I'll never know you really, every day there is more to discover. I lost sight of that, I think we both did to be honest. Now, liberated from tunnel vision, I ache to see you with fresh eyes. Basking in the afterglow? Please, that isn't true. I know you are out there changing too, I know you are out there uncovering all that you have to offer yourself and others. I know that there are some things that you are discovering about yourself that I have no idea about. That does not deter me love, that excites me.
Give me more reasons to love you than I already do. Show me more of your quirks, your flaws, your strengths, your interests, your everything. I am so filled with desire to know you as you know yourself, to see you everyday embark on that journey. And I am dying to show you the merits of my own journey. I know that there's no real rushing this. This is the sweet ache of your absence, but the hope, the fierce mad hope that some day you will return and we can spend everyday thereafter falling in love with each other all over again. You are made of riches and wonders; a menagerie of sound and sights I am thirsting for. And like a fine rum, we have passed through the fermentation in which our core elements became flesh and now we have been distilled shedding the toxins and impurities.
We are now ready to age. Each of us, housed in our own oak casks, are turning a darker golden amber each day we age. We are blossoming in new layers of flavor possessing new unexpected notes. And each day, a little of us pushes out into the ether to be swept away by evaporation. The angel's share of us rises and the gods smile down on us while we mature into a deeper and deeper sense of ourselves, of others, of the world around us. Is it a wonder then, that I should be excited rather than frightened to rediscover you after you have aged, and taste your sweetness once more? Is is a wonder that the possibility of feeling your taste, new and fresh, yet aged and familiar running across my tongue should make my tongue quiver and my gums sweat in anticipation? I am salivating already for the full notes of vanilla, of spices from far away lands I know not, and the illicit kick you will send straight to my nexus when I sample you again. Do not fear love, that I will move on when you burn so brightly in my chest.
I am aging too, in my own barrel, experiencing the world and metamorphosing. Aren't you also titillated by the prospect of seeing me again with a newness about me that is aching and raw and begs to be uncovered? Or is it just me now filled to the brim with this new found enthusiasm for life? I know, do not worry, this will take time. I am learning that all things worth having, are worth waiting for in some capacity. I am willing to fully savor this time knowing that at any moment in the future, we made cross paths and reunite again. And I hope in that moment, you will reach for my cask and the spigot will pour me forth into your waiting mouth so that you can see all the flavors I have to reveal to you, and the fact that we were a pair of spirits which were made uniquely to last together.
And you, you were never far from my mind. As I looked out over the twinkling amber and cherry city lights of San Fransisco from the black gravel lined oases of rooftop views, I wore you in my heart. You were there, beaming from me like a tattoo made of Opaline light showing through my skin. From the lofty, chilly spaces of San Francisco rooftops I huddled in loose circles of people, and my heart called to you. I stood in circles made of old friends and new faces that were populated by the clunking of Tecate cans, fist bumps, and incessant absurd laughter of those who were really surrendering to the moment and enjoying the sheer spontaneity of it. Yes indeed, this was more like myself than I had felt in a great while.
Still, I had you with me. And when I spoke, you peppered the conversation as easily as you always have, because your name is sheer joy when it slips from my lips. Don't worry, I didn't call you mine, not in any way you wouldn't approve of. But you could have been mine in that moment, I would have been proud to share it with you. I met artists, and poets, and carpenters, and people that worked in social services. I played pool and actually seemed to know what I was doing half the time. And there were moments, strange surreal moments, where I caught a glimpse of me from the outside; hovering somewhere off to the side, and I loved what I saw. I was talking, I was listening, I was looking people in the eye. I was happy to be there and for once that voice that constantly berates me took small vacations and allowed me to slip into a kind of confidence I loved so much.
Still, I had some hiccups. I still caught myself slipping into that place where I was about to maniacally go on and on, but logically I would finish my sentence and then ask the other person to tell me something about them. I caught myself more than once wringing my hands absently, but still noticeably enough to give me pause and stop. I caught myself tugging on my earlobe and rubbing the back of my neck with large flat palmed strokes. These are a few new ticks I have developed since I thrust myself into social situations I am unaccustomed to now. Namely that is, any at all. But undaunted I stayed in the moment, harnessing the power of genuinely loving being in it to keep me from shutting down and fading into obscurity. I consider these ticks to be a good sign, it means I am pushing my comfort zone, trying to expand. I have dubbed them the cramps and strains of my emotional growing pains. I just keep walking them off, taking time to remind myself to calm down, to enjoy right now, and just be present to the moment. I free myself of expectation and act authentically, with no burning desire to impress, but just a sincere wish to be organic with myself and others.
I would say confidently it paid off in spades. I laughed so hard I almost cried and my jaw ached from smiling. I gave more hugs in one night than I remember giving anyone in nearly a lifetime each embrace asserting I really was a human being and I could connect with people around me. I felt like I had been living in a dark cave of desperation and self hatred and someone had pushed me into the light and filled me with a sweeping kind of curious wonder. I was in love with every moment. Just the mere act of imagining that this could really be my life, the one I wanted to lead, and then realizing that I was suddenly living it was like a total a transistor blowing mind fuck. I met people who owned comic shops and other folk that drew comics. I met other poets that spend their nights like I do, capturing the elusive spirit of spoken word with the prison of the written.
I talked about my plans for APE, the paintings I am working on, and the Slam nights I attend and I felt alive. For once I was being the person I have always violently wanted to be and it felt astonishing. And through it all, my heart was coursing your name. As I lined up for each shot around the pool table, I imagined you were somehow watching, from some place overhead like a fly on the wall. And I felt myself swell with pride. Here was the woman you fell in love with, here was the woman underneath all the baggage all along, the one you have always seen through to so easily. As I navigated around the crowded bar, or reached out my hand to shake someone else's hand, I was able to see your face more clearly in my memory. It was as if it might be a premonition of days in the future, when I might be out some place with my friends and that I might text you, and you might show up with your friends and we could revel in the chance to widen the ranks of our comrades together. Or other times, I imagined easily that I was out with my friends for the night, and that it might be possible that some day I might leave this place and find my way home to you. It made me see the experience of being independent and autonomous would give our relationship strength and a deep sense of personal fulfillment.
The thought that I could be out in the world this way was exhilarating. When I thought about sharing that world with you, about having you have your own experiences and how that would give us more to share, more to talk about with each other, more to discover about one another; it made my heart swim with an infatuation with the future that made me feel like swooning. Instead of feeling anxious about my future, I felt at peace with it, like it was mine to shape and influence with my actions instead of my fears. And it made me realize, I want to share that future with you. And I can't describe it, it's not even just a simple wish, it's so much deeper than that. There's a kind of certainty that the chorus to our song, Overlap, perfectly describes our love. You and I have enough differences between us to give us strength and there is sweet comfort where we overlap.
How wondrous that even now, when all hope could be lost, I feel like the differences between us are compelling enough to make me view you through fresh eyes. Unencumbered by my projected fears and insecurities about myself, I see you more clearly than I ever have. And I am dying to know all about you. But it's alright, I'm not worried. We're both out here doing what we need to be doing. We're finding ourselves, so that we can bring our all to the table, and really show each other who we are. I know you think I will move on. I dare you to show up one day, and let me see you. I promise I'll want you more than you ever thought possible. I know you, but I'll never know you really, every day there is more to discover. I lost sight of that, I think we both did to be honest. Now, liberated from tunnel vision, I ache to see you with fresh eyes. Basking in the afterglow? Please, that isn't true. I know you are out there changing too, I know you are out there uncovering all that you have to offer yourself and others. I know that there are some things that you are discovering about yourself that I have no idea about. That does not deter me love, that excites me.
Give me more reasons to love you than I already do. Show me more of your quirks, your flaws, your strengths, your interests, your everything. I am so filled with desire to know you as you know yourself, to see you everyday embark on that journey. And I am dying to show you the merits of my own journey. I know that there's no real rushing this. This is the sweet ache of your absence, but the hope, the fierce mad hope that some day you will return and we can spend everyday thereafter falling in love with each other all over again. You are made of riches and wonders; a menagerie of sound and sights I am thirsting for. And like a fine rum, we have passed through the fermentation in which our core elements became flesh and now we have been distilled shedding the toxins and impurities.
We are now ready to age. Each of us, housed in our own oak casks, are turning a darker golden amber each day we age. We are blossoming in new layers of flavor possessing new unexpected notes. And each day, a little of us pushes out into the ether to be swept away by evaporation. The angel's share of us rises and the gods smile down on us while we mature into a deeper and deeper sense of ourselves, of others, of the world around us. Is it a wonder then, that I should be excited rather than frightened to rediscover you after you have aged, and taste your sweetness once more? Is is a wonder that the possibility of feeling your taste, new and fresh, yet aged and familiar running across my tongue should make my tongue quiver and my gums sweat in anticipation? I am salivating already for the full notes of vanilla, of spices from far away lands I know not, and the illicit kick you will send straight to my nexus when I sample you again. Do not fear love, that I will move on when you burn so brightly in my chest.
I am aging too, in my own barrel, experiencing the world and metamorphosing. Aren't you also titillated by the prospect of seeing me again with a newness about me that is aching and raw and begs to be uncovered? Or is it just me now filled to the brim with this new found enthusiasm for life? I know, do not worry, this will take time. I am learning that all things worth having, are worth waiting for in some capacity. I am willing to fully savor this time knowing that at any moment in the future, we made cross paths and reunite again. And I hope in that moment, you will reach for my cask and the spigot will pour me forth into your waiting mouth so that you can see all the flavors I have to reveal to you, and the fact that we were a pair of spirits which were made uniquely to last together.
Monday, March 1, 2010
Seventeen 03.01.10
My head is wreathed in wilting poppies. I come to you withered and worn. My ribs are starting to show through from this hunger strike, this fast. My wings are molting obsidian hued feathers faster than I can sweep them away. They are cutting the soles of my feet to ribbons along their sharp edges, like razors. I don't even notice anymore, the pain is nothing compared to this abysmal wrenching of my heart. I slide in these pools of blackish crimson I leave behind, shuffling through them in a way that is graceful but torpid.
Behind me is a trail of smashed and soaking feathers, footprints smeared in sticky pools of oxidized blood and a sprinkling of silver teardrops. Amongst the wreckage, here and there, are discarded dying poppy petals and through it all a long rattling chain rasps along the floor. A chain that is rusted but remains unbroken, leading back to the heart I gave you. It is ticking like a clock, suspended in the sands of a broken hourglass. Your Morpheus is broken.
But why do you shudder my love? What cause have you for worry when I am almost wasted away, and you will no longer have to mourn the passing of my once splendid form? Oh here, I see what's wrong. You're tourniquet is slipping. Here, allow me to tighten it for you. There now, see? All is right again. All is forgiven. Soon you will push toxins into your veins that will carry away your memories of me, the time we have shared, and all the fierce love that ever lay between us. Soon you will be filled with a warm glowing sensation of euphoria and after that a humming kind of numbness that will allow you peace. Because you will have already replaced me with someone else.
But that would be the desirable outcome wouldn't it? To replace me so that you wouldn't have to remember I ever have loved you, have ever brought you dreams or fantasies and tried to make them whole. I am tending the bleeding hearts and forget-me-nots in your Giardino di Cuore. For they are surely wanting some comfort and attention in these troubled times. Flowers as rare and delicate as these require sunshine and morning dew to blossom and seed. I am bringing both with me each time I visit them.
Flying like Icarus on my broken wings to the sun I capture it's rays and bring them down to your sprawling wonderland gardens so that they might thrive. Soon my wings will not bear enough feathers to make the full journey smoothly. No matter, I will continue, flying high as I can as the wind rips these flight inducing feathers from my body and then, unable to withstand the height, I will fall. I will crash down to the merciful soil of your gardens and drape myself across a throne that is gathering spider webs and starting to crumble. This is Eden, after the fall, barren but bittersweet in its enigmatic beauty. It holds the secrets to the great mysteries and I stay chained here watching this heart clock grow purple and bruised while the stinging sands of a broken hourglass whip at it.
You never did share the secret of the universe with me everyday as you said you would. In the end, like many things, you kept that neatly to yourself I see. But now, liberated from my presence, you're out sharing it with another. I suppose at least you've learned some lessons. If there were any to be gleaned at all, it should be that you should not fear to share yourself with others. You are so wonderful, so rare a precious element that the whole world sparkles under your blinding halo. I hope you healing my love. I hope you are sleeping restfully and that some other god can bring you the dreams I cannot. My wings are too broken to make this journey now.
I can only linger in your Giardino di Cuore listening to all the sounds that it evokes. The music here is of the sweetest hymns, gospel for my tattered soul. Hymns like Hallelujah echo forth on delicate ethereal voices, pouring over my battered body in waves of light and peace. The aching tones of phantom stringed instruments, the moan of a cello, the whine of a violin, the weeping of a viola, mate on the violet breezes and bring my crown of poppies back to life. My heart stirs as a sound akin to wind chimes brings my brow a smoothness it has not known for some time. The heart clock beats, straining against its bonds and I shudder for I have no tourniquet to dull this pain.
Delicate emerald and ruby winged butterflies flutter to my crown and feed on the nectar that spills forth. It tastes as sweet and light as my tears, carrying no trace of bitterness for you. Hummingbirds made of iridescent verdigris and shimmering amaranthine feathers stand guard in the tree boughs above my throne. Their sharp eyes, atramental orbs, pierce everything with an unwavering and vigilant gaze ready to swoop down and frighten away any unwelcome intruders. My oceanic eyes scan the horizon as the sun dips in your gardens and casts them in the brilliant glow of corals, sweeping tones of copper, and blazing highlights of tangerine. The sunset is leaving me chill, and I pull my disheveled and rumpled wings around me for warmth. Twinkling knife points of pure white light begin to wink from the spreading indigo and deep blue grey spreading out above me. A full moon rises with pregnant grace.
I stare at it, wondering what new moons will bring, and how long it will be before my wings will mend, if ever. This garden, once my sanctum, is now my sepulcher. My throne bears the epitaphs you once sang in my honor. The butterflies and hummingbirds still themselves in sleep, and slowly my poppies turn to stone.
Behind me is a trail of smashed and soaking feathers, footprints smeared in sticky pools of oxidized blood and a sprinkling of silver teardrops. Amongst the wreckage, here and there, are discarded dying poppy petals and through it all a long rattling chain rasps along the floor. A chain that is rusted but remains unbroken, leading back to the heart I gave you. It is ticking like a clock, suspended in the sands of a broken hourglass. Your Morpheus is broken.
But why do you shudder my love? What cause have you for worry when I am almost wasted away, and you will no longer have to mourn the passing of my once splendid form? Oh here, I see what's wrong. You're tourniquet is slipping. Here, allow me to tighten it for you. There now, see? All is right again. All is forgiven. Soon you will push toxins into your veins that will carry away your memories of me, the time we have shared, and all the fierce love that ever lay between us. Soon you will be filled with a warm glowing sensation of euphoria and after that a humming kind of numbness that will allow you peace. Because you will have already replaced me with someone else.
But that would be the desirable outcome wouldn't it? To replace me so that you wouldn't have to remember I ever have loved you, have ever brought you dreams or fantasies and tried to make them whole. I am tending the bleeding hearts and forget-me-nots in your Giardino di Cuore. For they are surely wanting some comfort and attention in these troubled times. Flowers as rare and delicate as these require sunshine and morning dew to blossom and seed. I am bringing both with me each time I visit them.
Flying like Icarus on my broken wings to the sun I capture it's rays and bring them down to your sprawling wonderland gardens so that they might thrive. Soon my wings will not bear enough feathers to make the full journey smoothly. No matter, I will continue, flying high as I can as the wind rips these flight inducing feathers from my body and then, unable to withstand the height, I will fall. I will crash down to the merciful soil of your gardens and drape myself across a throne that is gathering spider webs and starting to crumble. This is Eden, after the fall, barren but bittersweet in its enigmatic beauty. It holds the secrets to the great mysteries and I stay chained here watching this heart clock grow purple and bruised while the stinging sands of a broken hourglass whip at it.
You never did share the secret of the universe with me everyday as you said you would. In the end, like many things, you kept that neatly to yourself I see. But now, liberated from my presence, you're out sharing it with another. I suppose at least you've learned some lessons. If there were any to be gleaned at all, it should be that you should not fear to share yourself with others. You are so wonderful, so rare a precious element that the whole world sparkles under your blinding halo. I hope you healing my love. I hope you are sleeping restfully and that some other god can bring you the dreams I cannot. My wings are too broken to make this journey now.
I can only linger in your Giardino di Cuore listening to all the sounds that it evokes. The music here is of the sweetest hymns, gospel for my tattered soul. Hymns like Hallelujah echo forth on delicate ethereal voices, pouring over my battered body in waves of light and peace. The aching tones of phantom stringed instruments, the moan of a cello, the whine of a violin, the weeping of a viola, mate on the violet breezes and bring my crown of poppies back to life. My heart stirs as a sound akin to wind chimes brings my brow a smoothness it has not known for some time. The heart clock beats, straining against its bonds and I shudder for I have no tourniquet to dull this pain.
Delicate emerald and ruby winged butterflies flutter to my crown and feed on the nectar that spills forth. It tastes as sweet and light as my tears, carrying no trace of bitterness for you. Hummingbirds made of iridescent verdigris and shimmering amaranthine feathers stand guard in the tree boughs above my throne. Their sharp eyes, atramental orbs, pierce everything with an unwavering and vigilant gaze ready to swoop down and frighten away any unwelcome intruders. My oceanic eyes scan the horizon as the sun dips in your gardens and casts them in the brilliant glow of corals, sweeping tones of copper, and blazing highlights of tangerine. The sunset is leaving me chill, and I pull my disheveled and rumpled wings around me for warmth. Twinkling knife points of pure white light begin to wink from the spreading indigo and deep blue grey spreading out above me. A full moon rises with pregnant grace.
I stare at it, wondering what new moons will bring, and how long it will be before my wings will mend, if ever. This garden, once my sanctum, is now my sepulcher. My throne bears the epitaphs you once sang in my honor. The butterflies and hummingbirds still themselves in sleep, and slowly my poppies turn to stone.
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