I have to apologize to you. There is so much I am keeping from you now, there is so much I am sparing you from because I choose to afford you that ignorance if it means you'll have bliss. I wouldn't even know where to begin anymore, and none of it matters, divulging the fullness of the truth to you will not lighten the load. It will not bring us closer together, it will not breed more understanding between us, it will not make me seem like I am someone you would want to keep in your life. In the end, this is just how it should be. My concerns are not yours to share any longer. What happens to me is of no real consequence for your journey and in fact, it should not be. I can only move forward, and show you the tender pink of my palms, holding them up as if to say "I surrender."
I have to ask you to forgive me, because it is never my intention to keep things from you. You know that I would never purposefully omit anything from you, I have tried and failed SO many times. The only things I ever have been able to keep from you are things I was keeping from myself. I wish this were the truth of the matter now, but this, this I cannot help. I cannot tell you these things, because then you might be motivated out of pity to remain in my life. And I will not have that. I would rather have your distance, than your pity any day. It is not a matter of simple pride that separates us now. It is a matter of health. It would be codependent, sick, and wrong for me to tell you these things at this point. To expect them to matter to you, to expect you to give me anything beyond what you have given already is ridiculous. I am grateful to you, so grateful that you have given me anything at all.
I'm sorry I can't ask you to be my friend or my companion where I am going now. I'm sorry that it will seem like I am withdrawing and putting distance between us purposefully. I ask only that you try, please try to understand, my intention is pure. I want to protect you. I want you to remain focused on yourself. I honestly think at this point, I do not want you to think about me at all any longer. It would be best if we both come to this realization and admitted it openly: you will be better off without me in your life. Truly, I want the best in all things for you, at present state I cannot give you my best. I can't muster good or fair for you. My only option is to do what is left, to do what is right. That is to keep my distance, to continue to keep these things from you, to keep myself far far away from your reach, from your sight, from your thoughts.
You might be wondering now, will I stop writing these letters? The answer is steadfastly: No. But I will not let my tongue fly the way I used to. You will hear no more details of the turbulence or the whining scream of my dying engines. I will give you no eyes for which to view the tailspin that ensues or the smoking rubble I will have to crawl from in the end. I will lick my wounds in silence and stitch them closed myself. I will hide the scars from you. Your ears, your velveteen ears will never bear the sounds of my sobbing. You will never learn the truth of this time of hardship for me because I wish to spare you the melancholy. Let me give you joy, I'll find some sunshine in my days yet to come real or fiction to share with you.
I will show you just my love, just my teeth bared in the whitest of smiles. For truly it will be only thoughts of you to bring some real and lasting happiness for at least a while. But I will not show you my eyes grown swollen and red, and I will not let you hear the tremors in my voice. I am about to show you a magic show, fading from view, you will see only puffs of smoke and bright costumes worn for your amusement. If this hurts you, if this drive you from me, then I again, I feel compelled to beg for your mercy. It is out of my supreme consideration for you that I bar you from these sights and never tell you what will transpire in this time. I will paint myself with stripes and walk with tigers, hoping they do not smell my bacon scented sweat and fear.
I will attempt to appear normal as if nothing is amiss. I will not bother your friends for one iota of help. I will not contact them to tell them what transpires, and if they ask me, I will keep this from their view as well. This is how it should be. You should move on with freedom and grace kissing the soles of your feet at every step. I should appear jubilant and carefree as well. And so, I shall appear that way for your sake. And I will hope that someday, you may come to understand that I kept these things from you so that you could continue to move on and keep what we have had between us unsullied in your memories. Now I will only wonder, if there will ever come a day when you stop reading these words. I will only wonder if the day you do not return anymore was yesterday, or today, or tomorrow.
And if you should stop, then maybe I will know at least some peace I suppose. I will hope that I have done what is right for you, and allowed you to walk free. I will have granted you the final ability to never have to think of me without a smile on your face or a chuckle in your heart. I would rather you think of me with warmth and sunshine peppering your mirth than sadness or sorrow or pity gracing your lips. Let there be nothing left to say between us for the rest of the time you read these letters except: I love it when you smile.
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
Thirty One 03.15.10
A month has passed already like smoke curling through my spindly fingers. I am washing away the scent of fear from my body as my head bends back into the spray of my shower. The beads reign down against my head and I think of you, the way you used to run your nails across my scalp and make me shiver. One hundred and twelve pages I have poured out of my heart for you in the last thirty days, spending these words carelessly around in every direction. I am pitching them like knives at a curved mirror. They could cut me, they could be the thing that fells me in the end. These emotions, these words I attempt to convey, they could be my undoing I suppose. But I prefer to think of it more like this.
You are the streets of Argentina. I roamed you once and fell madly in love with you. You have never left my dreams or my thoughts even after I left your soil. I cannot dislodge any part of you from my mind, my spirit, my body; Not your tangled tango limbs, or your laughter bearing the braying of accordion music , or your swagger carrying street graffiti and the smell of piss. I could never forget you, the same way I could never forget Argentina. Its misty cobbled streets haunt my dreams the same way your dark tendril trusses do. Its small sweet stands and glittering chocolates dance in the corners of my memory never far from reach, just as the deep flavor of your kiss beckons my lips each night. Even though it has been some 3 years since I set foot on that corner of the globe, I know, I will return to this place.
It is certain, for I can see it, stretched out over many years of my life, I will return to that place of magic and wonder. So it is with you, I know I will always return to you. Even if I wander, even if life carries us away from each other, I will always return to your side. Argentina is in my heart, and always just a dream away. You are no different from that place, you are filled with the familiar and the exotic. You hold the promise of welcome and the excitement of the foreign. I will never conquer you, I will never try, I will only explore you as often as you allow. I will give you my heart this way, because it was tied to you this way the moment I met you.
I do not wonder if I should see you again, for you have told me I will always have a place in your life. I only wonder what time alone will reveal to me, will I always have a place in your heart? The answer of course, does not matter now. And so it should not be looked after, but only noted so that you might remember this: Your place in my heart is the whole of it. I will go on loving others my friends, my family, my fellow humankind. I will spread joy and peace to every corner of the globe. Such is my mission in this cycle, I have come to accept that now. But my heart, will always be possessed by you. That is why I ask you to grant me this mercy, should you ever decide you no longer wish to have my heart to yourself. Please keep it, for I have no use for it. Do not return it to me, for it will be a useless scrap of muscle and tissue. Rather, you should keep it as a trophy, to know all that you are capable of achieving.
Keep it as a souvenir so that it is a lasting reminder that somewhere the world over, there is someone who will always love you. And you can look at it as often as you like, and see how its every stitch of flesh is made up in your image. How it survives to love you in spite of whatever resistance it may encounter. No, you may keep it, please do not give it back. But you may send word, that you have mounted it and how it gleams upon your mantle piece, now only an ornament to a dead love. You can send me funny stories about how it is the showcase piece in your taxidermy collection. How it is the cornerstone of your living room, a real "conversation piece" amongst friends. And I will smile, knowing that it is being put to good use. I will smile knowing that when all the guests have gone home and your new lover has retired to bed, you will sit upon a velveteen cushion and by its light you will send Alice in Wonderland Caterpillar smoke rings into the air. I will smile knowing that you are basking in its warmth.
And as you do, you can listen to the sounds of Argentine accordions sing you sweet melodies from my memories and you can watch how the figurines of you and I dance in the misty cobblestone streets within the chambers of my heart. It will be your own private theater, to play out any recollections or any fantasies you might have had of our lives together at any one point. And I assure you, it will glow for you just the same every night. It will shine in delicate ruby shades and spill forth a kind of fog bank made of love and hope. I hope that you will let it wash over you then, and carry you away to other times in space. Times when this burden of distance and grief did not have to come between us. Times when we could have learned to love each other still and been good for one another. Times I am hoping are still in store for us both.
Yes, until the day I die, you will be my Argentina. Beautiful and profound, you will have touched me just as this place did, invoking wonder and a sense of homecoming. You are tango heels and the chrome spit shined on a classic Buick sitting in the sunset on a small avenue in La Boca. You are the cheery colors and acrobatic fonts that haunt my dreams from every store's sign. You are the smell of hash and hand rolled cigarettes. You are golden media lunas filling the night sky, and the eyes of Evita Peron smiling down on me from the stars. You are the soul shaking majesty of the crypts of Recoleta cemetery. And when I die, I want my bones to be buried there, under your skin forever. I want my crypt to look like the plantation house I dream of raising your children in, weeping with moss and lichen but standing resolute and firm. I want you to visit that place, and run your hands over my death portrait and see the smile plastered on my face. I want you to know then, the smile was always for you, even in my dying moment.
And when you return home after your visit to my resting place, I want you to see how my heart still glows for your in its glass casement. I want you to know then what I have told you is always true, my love is ever last. My love for you is the stuff of fairy tales made real. And you will always have this love, the same way that I will always have Argentina in your kiss when I close my eyes to sleep.
You are the streets of Argentina. I roamed you once and fell madly in love with you. You have never left my dreams or my thoughts even after I left your soil. I cannot dislodge any part of you from my mind, my spirit, my body; Not your tangled tango limbs, or your laughter bearing the braying of accordion music , or your swagger carrying street graffiti and the smell of piss. I could never forget you, the same way I could never forget Argentina. Its misty cobbled streets haunt my dreams the same way your dark tendril trusses do. Its small sweet stands and glittering chocolates dance in the corners of my memory never far from reach, just as the deep flavor of your kiss beckons my lips each night. Even though it has been some 3 years since I set foot on that corner of the globe, I know, I will return to this place.
It is certain, for I can see it, stretched out over many years of my life, I will return to that place of magic and wonder. So it is with you, I know I will always return to you. Even if I wander, even if life carries us away from each other, I will always return to your side. Argentina is in my heart, and always just a dream away. You are no different from that place, you are filled with the familiar and the exotic. You hold the promise of welcome and the excitement of the foreign. I will never conquer you, I will never try, I will only explore you as often as you allow. I will give you my heart this way, because it was tied to you this way the moment I met you.
I do not wonder if I should see you again, for you have told me I will always have a place in your life. I only wonder what time alone will reveal to me, will I always have a place in your heart? The answer of course, does not matter now. And so it should not be looked after, but only noted so that you might remember this: Your place in my heart is the whole of it. I will go on loving others my friends, my family, my fellow humankind. I will spread joy and peace to every corner of the globe. Such is my mission in this cycle, I have come to accept that now. But my heart, will always be possessed by you. That is why I ask you to grant me this mercy, should you ever decide you no longer wish to have my heart to yourself. Please keep it, for I have no use for it. Do not return it to me, for it will be a useless scrap of muscle and tissue. Rather, you should keep it as a trophy, to know all that you are capable of achieving.
Keep it as a souvenir so that it is a lasting reminder that somewhere the world over, there is someone who will always love you. And you can look at it as often as you like, and see how its every stitch of flesh is made up in your image. How it survives to love you in spite of whatever resistance it may encounter. No, you may keep it, please do not give it back. But you may send word, that you have mounted it and how it gleams upon your mantle piece, now only an ornament to a dead love. You can send me funny stories about how it is the showcase piece in your taxidermy collection. How it is the cornerstone of your living room, a real "conversation piece" amongst friends. And I will smile, knowing that it is being put to good use. I will smile knowing that when all the guests have gone home and your new lover has retired to bed, you will sit upon a velveteen cushion and by its light you will send Alice in Wonderland Caterpillar smoke rings into the air. I will smile knowing that you are basking in its warmth.
And as you do, you can listen to the sounds of Argentine accordions sing you sweet melodies from my memories and you can watch how the figurines of you and I dance in the misty cobblestone streets within the chambers of my heart. It will be your own private theater, to play out any recollections or any fantasies you might have had of our lives together at any one point. And I assure you, it will glow for you just the same every night. It will shine in delicate ruby shades and spill forth a kind of fog bank made of love and hope. I hope that you will let it wash over you then, and carry you away to other times in space. Times when this burden of distance and grief did not have to come between us. Times when we could have learned to love each other still and been good for one another. Times I am hoping are still in store for us both.
Yes, until the day I die, you will be my Argentina. Beautiful and profound, you will have touched me just as this place did, invoking wonder and a sense of homecoming. You are tango heels and the chrome spit shined on a classic Buick sitting in the sunset on a small avenue in La Boca. You are the cheery colors and acrobatic fonts that haunt my dreams from every store's sign. You are the smell of hash and hand rolled cigarettes. You are golden media lunas filling the night sky, and the eyes of Evita Peron smiling down on me from the stars. You are the soul shaking majesty of the crypts of Recoleta cemetery. And when I die, I want my bones to be buried there, under your skin forever. I want my crypt to look like the plantation house I dream of raising your children in, weeping with moss and lichen but standing resolute and firm. I want you to visit that place, and run your hands over my death portrait and see the smile plastered on my face. I want you to know then, the smile was always for you, even in my dying moment.
And when you return home after your visit to my resting place, I want you to see how my heart still glows for your in its glass casement. I want you to know then what I have told you is always true, my love is ever last. My love for you is the stuff of fairy tales made real. And you will always have this love, the same way that I will always have Argentina in your kiss when I close my eyes to sleep.
Monday, March 15, 2010
Thirty 03.14.10
And so, some things will come to pass that neither of us could foresee. Such is the way of it, isn't it? This is the way life tests us, molds us, shapes us into something new and better. At least, I am hoping this will all lead to some good. I am hoping this will lead us both to a better path. There is so much loss around me, so much chaos. I am hoping that it is not that way for you...I am hoping at least one of us is doing spectacularly in spite of all the change that swirls about us both.
I know the song you quoted today, by Dresden Dolls. I pray that was not intended to be a veiled suggestion towards me. I hope you don't for a moment think that I am only interested in sharing with you my pain or being self centered with my communication. Is it possible that at this point you are not fully aware of how much I would like to know how you are doing? I miss you each and every day. Every moment that happens, I wonder what you are up to, what you learning, if you are well or not. I assure you, I am more curious about how you are than you can imagine. But I try not to pry. I try not to force myself into your life. I trust that if you wanted me in it, you would find a way to include me. Still, I let you know that I am close at hand, nearby, should you wish to reach out and contact me. I leave you this window to be able to have a vantage point into my life, but that does not mean for a moment I am not interested in also viewing your life.
I don't want you to think I am going anywhere where you cannot find me, be it for friendship, love, or anything else positive that I might be able to afford you with my life. It is as I have said always my pleasure to include you in my life. I have made a space for you here, carved it out of bone and flesh, so that you know you are always welcome. You will always be a part of me. I accept there must be distance between us now, I'm still not totally clear on the reasons why, I suppose I'll never really know all the reasons. I can only hope it will become clear to me in a way that makes sense and offers healing soon.
In the meantime, I send you word, souvenirs from the days of my life so that you know I am still keeping a place for you in my heart and my life. It is always my joy to share with you. It always brings me happiness to give to you, free of expectations or reciprocation. I would hope that if this bothers you, if it should ever broach intrusion in some way you do not wish to receive, you would let me know. I am looking to you for direction on that front. I am giving you space, but I don't want you to think I am not interested in having you in my life, of being in yours somehow. I am also trying to use this time for myself, to move forward with my life, despite all the changes now which seem to descend at once in the most overwhelming fashion.
This is not to say, I am not doing well. It is just to say that 4 months ago if you had told me that by this time I would have lost my Grandmother to cancer, my true love to a destiny I still do not fully comprehend, possibly my newest kin to the cruel tricks of fate, and then my home to the follies of this recession, I would not have believed you. If you had told me 4 months ago that nearly everything I know and love would change in less than 2 months time I would have howled with indignation. I would have buried my head in the sand and never seen this coming, never even would have been able to dream up such a sorted tale.
Now more than ever, I am wishing that this had not come to pass between us. I miss your advice, the comfort you offer to those you care about in need, the easy way you can turn something ugly into something of beauty. But I am aware; you do not owe me any of those acts of kindness. Neither myself, nor my emotions are your concern now. You should be focused on yourself and learning to be on your own. These problems are mine, just that, my problems to bear on my own. Not that they ever would have been yours, even if we bore the same love for each other now. But you might have smiled on me with love's light and held me while I cried at the sheer sense of grief, having come to loose nearly everything I hold dear to me.
You might have offered me your hand to hold through this time of uncertainty, your friendship, your support, your ability to see things objectively, maybe even your love. Again, none of these things are your responsibility to give to me. And I will never ask you for these gifts for they carry far too heavy a price tag: your happiness. No, instead I will find solace in my own arms. I will bear this burden on my own and I will move on into my future alone. I will keep you away from having to see me suffer over these things, because they are nearly too painful for me to bear let alone having to involve you in them. I will continue to let you know how I am, but I will not expect or ask for a moment that you extend me any kindness or attention you are unprepared or unwilling to afford me. I respect your journey, even if mine is proving to be challenging.
I am sorry to have told you what I told you tonight. I am sorry I couldn't find a better way to communicate with you. I would have called you, lord knows I wanted to, but I didn't want to risk you not picking up. I didn't want to risk not having you hear what I had to tell you. I just had this horrible vision, that someday you might try to call me or stop by my house, or send me something in the mail and that I would have seemingly disappeared without saying a word to you. I thought about how that might feel for you in that moment, the shock, the pain, the sense of betrayal in abandonment and I knew I couldn't do that to you. More importantly, I wouldn't ever want to. I always want you to know there is a seat here waiting for you in my life, always bearing your name only. I wanted to keep you informed, so that if my number changed, my home sent back mail to you, or you didn't find me or anyone you knew behind that old door, you would have heard it from me, and not some mutual friend.
I don't know what will happen. I won't even begin to try to venture a guess. But I will tell you that no matter what, one thing will remain: my love for you. I hope you know, even now, I am keeping you in my heart and I am sending you all my best wishes for a happy life. There will never be a place I will go, or a time in my life that I will not welcome you into it. Regardless of the number of people in my family, the location we all live in, or the innumerable ways that life can change for us over the months and years to come, I will always leave a way for you to contact me. I will always be right here in my heart, waiting and interested in anything you have to share with me, thrilled that you thought to include me in any way.
There are no guarantees in life, I am aware of that more and more each day. Promises are almost assuredly made to be broken after a fashion. Word given in bond fails as hearts give way to distance, time, or death. Change remains the only universal constant along with its companion: death. Change will alter the surroundings and the colors of my life, but it will never taint my love for you. That is a promise that I make fully knowing that it is truth to the very core of my being, that is a timeless vow I make to you. If I didn't know this with every fiber of my soul, I would never have bound my energy to you. The ONLY person I have ever bound myself to in that fashion before or since. To forsake that promise is to allow a piece of my soul to waste away to nothing. To make that die, is an impossible act, because it will never be so. Its essence is everlasting.
I will be with you this way, even if you do not want me, until my soul fades into nothingness. Each life I have after wards, I will search for you. Each existence, I will quest, looking for your eyes in all the planes I can wander either bodily or spiritually. My soul will yearn to be at your side, and so, regardless of what happens, I will be with you. I will give to you endlessly and I will wait hoping to receive from you anything in any regard ever again. Be well my sweet, have happiness and light surround you. Do not worry after me, I will find the way. But if you should want to come to me, to share some of your time with me, to share some space with me even for a moment, just reach out and I will be there.
I will always be there.
I know the song you quoted today, by Dresden Dolls. I pray that was not intended to be a veiled suggestion towards me. I hope you don't for a moment think that I am only interested in sharing with you my pain or being self centered with my communication. Is it possible that at this point you are not fully aware of how much I would like to know how you are doing? I miss you each and every day. Every moment that happens, I wonder what you are up to, what you learning, if you are well or not. I assure you, I am more curious about how you are than you can imagine. But I try not to pry. I try not to force myself into your life. I trust that if you wanted me in it, you would find a way to include me. Still, I let you know that I am close at hand, nearby, should you wish to reach out and contact me. I leave you this window to be able to have a vantage point into my life, but that does not mean for a moment I am not interested in also viewing your life.
I don't want you to think I am going anywhere where you cannot find me, be it for friendship, love, or anything else positive that I might be able to afford you with my life. It is as I have said always my pleasure to include you in my life. I have made a space for you here, carved it out of bone and flesh, so that you know you are always welcome. You will always be a part of me. I accept there must be distance between us now, I'm still not totally clear on the reasons why, I suppose I'll never really know all the reasons. I can only hope it will become clear to me in a way that makes sense and offers healing soon.
In the meantime, I send you word, souvenirs from the days of my life so that you know I am still keeping a place for you in my heart and my life. It is always my joy to share with you. It always brings me happiness to give to you, free of expectations or reciprocation. I would hope that if this bothers you, if it should ever broach intrusion in some way you do not wish to receive, you would let me know. I am looking to you for direction on that front. I am giving you space, but I don't want you to think I am not interested in having you in my life, of being in yours somehow. I am also trying to use this time for myself, to move forward with my life, despite all the changes now which seem to descend at once in the most overwhelming fashion.
This is not to say, I am not doing well. It is just to say that 4 months ago if you had told me that by this time I would have lost my Grandmother to cancer, my true love to a destiny I still do not fully comprehend, possibly my newest kin to the cruel tricks of fate, and then my home to the follies of this recession, I would not have believed you. If you had told me 4 months ago that nearly everything I know and love would change in less than 2 months time I would have howled with indignation. I would have buried my head in the sand and never seen this coming, never even would have been able to dream up such a sorted tale.
Now more than ever, I am wishing that this had not come to pass between us. I miss your advice, the comfort you offer to those you care about in need, the easy way you can turn something ugly into something of beauty. But I am aware; you do not owe me any of those acts of kindness. Neither myself, nor my emotions are your concern now. You should be focused on yourself and learning to be on your own. These problems are mine, just that, my problems to bear on my own. Not that they ever would have been yours, even if we bore the same love for each other now. But you might have smiled on me with love's light and held me while I cried at the sheer sense of grief, having come to loose nearly everything I hold dear to me.
You might have offered me your hand to hold through this time of uncertainty, your friendship, your support, your ability to see things objectively, maybe even your love. Again, none of these things are your responsibility to give to me. And I will never ask you for these gifts for they carry far too heavy a price tag: your happiness. No, instead I will find solace in my own arms. I will bear this burden on my own and I will move on into my future alone. I will keep you away from having to see me suffer over these things, because they are nearly too painful for me to bear let alone having to involve you in them. I will continue to let you know how I am, but I will not expect or ask for a moment that you extend me any kindness or attention you are unprepared or unwilling to afford me. I respect your journey, even if mine is proving to be challenging.
I am sorry to have told you what I told you tonight. I am sorry I couldn't find a better way to communicate with you. I would have called you, lord knows I wanted to, but I didn't want to risk you not picking up. I didn't want to risk not having you hear what I had to tell you. I just had this horrible vision, that someday you might try to call me or stop by my house, or send me something in the mail and that I would have seemingly disappeared without saying a word to you. I thought about how that might feel for you in that moment, the shock, the pain, the sense of betrayal in abandonment and I knew I couldn't do that to you. More importantly, I wouldn't ever want to. I always want you to know there is a seat here waiting for you in my life, always bearing your name only. I wanted to keep you informed, so that if my number changed, my home sent back mail to you, or you didn't find me or anyone you knew behind that old door, you would have heard it from me, and not some mutual friend.
I don't know what will happen. I won't even begin to try to venture a guess. But I will tell you that no matter what, one thing will remain: my love for you. I hope you know, even now, I am keeping you in my heart and I am sending you all my best wishes for a happy life. There will never be a place I will go, or a time in my life that I will not welcome you into it. Regardless of the number of people in my family, the location we all live in, or the innumerable ways that life can change for us over the months and years to come, I will always leave a way for you to contact me. I will always be right here in my heart, waiting and interested in anything you have to share with me, thrilled that you thought to include me in any way.
There are no guarantees in life, I am aware of that more and more each day. Promises are almost assuredly made to be broken after a fashion. Word given in bond fails as hearts give way to distance, time, or death. Change remains the only universal constant along with its companion: death. Change will alter the surroundings and the colors of my life, but it will never taint my love for you. That is a promise that I make fully knowing that it is truth to the very core of my being, that is a timeless vow I make to you. If I didn't know this with every fiber of my soul, I would never have bound my energy to you. The ONLY person I have ever bound myself to in that fashion before or since. To forsake that promise is to allow a piece of my soul to waste away to nothing. To make that die, is an impossible act, because it will never be so. Its essence is everlasting.
I will be with you this way, even if you do not want me, until my soul fades into nothingness. Each life I have after wards, I will search for you. Each existence, I will quest, looking for your eyes in all the planes I can wander either bodily or spiritually. My soul will yearn to be at your side, and so, regardless of what happens, I will be with you. I will give to you endlessly and I will wait hoping to receive from you anything in any regard ever again. Be well my sweet, have happiness and light surround you. Do not worry after me, I will find the way. But if you should want to come to me, to share some of your time with me, to share some space with me even for a moment, just reach out and I will be there.
I will always be there.
Saturday, March 13, 2010
Twenty Nine 03.13.10
Today I woke with a sense of purpose. I have a vision for my future and assuredly you will be a part of it always, if only for the appointment my day revolved around. You have set me on a new path that I will carry with me all my lifelong. How have you done this? Simply by revealing the truth I was afraid to confront for so long: my life is a beautiful journey. I am the one that will sail this vessel forth to every destiny I can envision and evoke by my heartfelt will and devotion to its path. My past need not haunt me any longer, I can cast off its painful shackles and explore my present and my future with a spreading sense of joy and wonder.
Today I woke with a song for you still being sung by the swallow flying proudly over my heart. It was song of light silvery flute tones and the twanging of tinny banjo strings. It wailed on the harmonica like a xylophone made from train whistles and sent you rays of sparkling sunshine and wildflowers in bloom. My swallow and I split a pair of twin smiles and sent kisses filled with warmth to your heart for healing. I am learning more and more each day that you are such a gift for me to have had in my life or my heart at all. Even if you never see me again, I will treasure and love you always, for you are an extreme blessing to all you meet. You have exposed a lasting lesson to me, and in the end, you have been my most profound teacher above all others. This lesson was long overdue, now that I am embracing it I am loving my life now more than ever. I am only wishing that someday you might be in it, as I must admit: I miss you fiercely.
As I dressed and cooked breakfast for my friends, I found peace and love radiate forth from my core. These acts of love and sharing myself with others are so beneficial. I am making myself more and more present to this fact with each and every forward motion. I am finding joy with as many people as I am lucky to encounter, each of them offering distinct and startling possibilities for mutual growth between us. To expose more of my personality that is giving and nurturing feels more authentic to my spirit than I have felt in so long, if ever, I don't know why I have remained protective that side of myself with venom and spite.
We ate in the brilliant yellow sunshine, feeling the breeze flirt with our skin. The day was clear and bright, it was magical to feel the moment washing over us. Just enjoying our time together, talking of this and that, everything was pointing towards today being a day of supreme good fortune for me. I was exhilarated. I thought of you all the time, but my thoughts were not clouded by pain or fear, they were calming in a steady loving kind of way. Gratitude filled my spirit and I washed my sorrow down the drain with the dish water. Spring is arriving and with it I send the Winter's chill kiss into the past.
Finally, we set out for my appointment. Lately, so many things seem dreamlike. Life runs like a breathtaking movie to me at times, and I am swept away with its majesty. We wound through city streets and singing, talking, and dancing along the way. What an adventure it all is, I marvel at its potential and fill my lungs with air that I know will fortify my spirit. It is singing on the wind with my swallow's song, possibility is beckoning me to it at every turn. And I find with childlike wonder, the more I indulge and follow my heart, more and more I am lead to the life I have always imagined could be mine. I am blossoming into a kind of deep and lasting comfort with myself. I am finding that connecting with others, known or otherwise, has become an medicinal activity for me as I relinquish control and allow myself to be authentic to me and my true wishes.
Through it all, I love you still. I am proud to carry you with me here, in my heart with lasting gratitude and the glow of bliss. We arrived at the fire engine red storefront it's fileteado porteno style brought me back to Argentina. The highly stylized banner above blared out "COLD STEEL TATTOO PARLOR" in a bold golden color and my heart felt easy and light. Inside we found Kevin, he would be my tattoo artist for the day. His voice was kind and had a kind of easy musical quality to it. You felt soothed and happy in his presence, his demeanor was infectious and we found ourselves beaming. He was covered in tattoos and his chops made him look like he was cut out of a carnival, his easy southern drawl adding to the effect. I could just see him working the milk bottle booth or the strong man stand, heckling the passers-by with his warm smile and shoot from the hip humor. His hands were large with flat weathered palms and hairy knuckles. When he shook my hand though, it was with a kind of gentle firmness one might not expect and his eyes twinkled like an imp.
He asked me to confirm I was there for the tattoo I had spoken about and I was happy to agree with him. I was ready if he was! Hidden in my back pocket, was a pouch we bought at APE this last year. When I pulled it from my pocket and unzipped it, a rush of memories came flooding back to me from our time together there. Thank you for sharing my passions with me, for coming and involving yourself. If it wasn't for you doing that, always being so encouraging of me and my wishes, and spurring me onto a place of positivity even when I was downtrodden and despondent, I don't think I would have these memories to look back on. Thank you for everything you have given me. I reached into the pouch and slid out a small gun metal black handcuff key, bound to a key chain that bore the winking lights of Las Vegas. It was fitting, that the beginning of it all should be with me now. I handed it to him, trusting him with this very physical reminder of all we have shared.
When he returned I placed it into its padded home and slid it into my back pocket. He lead us back to his studio, and shut us inside. The walls were bathed in a deep blood red. They were lined with taxidermy projects, jarred chicken hearts, macabre art, pictures of wild animals, tattoo flash and along the wall at least 3 dozen movies and cds. Tom Waits drifted from his mac book and my smile splayed across my face wide and easy. We spoke freely, the 4 of us leap frogging in and out of conversation. We sat back and let the moment overtake us. Soon I was lying down on the table, my right ear facing upwards. He ran the razor's edge against my hairline, shaving away any peach fuzz which would keep the ink from taking all the way. Then he held my head and squeezed gently, letting the stencil set before peeling it away slowly. I laid still but comfortable feeling my chest rise and fall.
The needles buzzed to life across the room and I felt my skin tingle. Soon the points of the size 5 needles were humming in my skull. Above the grating reverb, the sounds of Lynard Skynard, Johnny Cash, and Merle Haggard made my smile unfold in a sweetly pensive way. Were you with me just as you always are, or was it just my imagination? My ears rang with the whirring sound of the tattoo gun, this was the deepest kiss I had had thus far by this electric siren. My skull echoed back with pulsing flickers of the hollow sound of bone being drilled. This was the sensation of a 1,000 tiny bee stings prickling along my neck and head, the biting slice of the outline feeling like a razor's edge carving into my skull, the curving burn as the tight clean lines were embedded into my skin. The pain was nothing, I relished it while it lasted, knowing that like all things in life the moment was fleeting and held its own kind of beauty. The outline was done before I knew it, due in part to his light easy touch, but also to his dulcet voice. He spoke of a thousand things and I felt a little like he was winding me along on a journey made of story and adventure.
Even when he slid his chair back from the table and switched to the rounded needles to complete the shading his voice carried across the studio space and into my ringing ears. I felt the soreness bleed into my neck and head for the first time without his tattoo gun buzzing in my ear to distract me. While he put on the shading and the highlights he curled his arm around me, holding me in a kind of tight embrace. His muscles felt solid and warm against my form and it lulled me into the same kind of comfort I had felt when I fell asleep with my head in your lap for the first time. This was trust, the warm feeling spreading over my limbs and outwards. I relaxed into the sensations, surprised that the fills were not bothering me as much as they used to. In the past, I used to become angry when the fills were going into my tattoos. This time, I had only fleeting pockets of irritation mostly because the sensations were strong and difficult at times to breathe through. Even in spite of this, I was content and calm, the experience was catharsis.
In what seemed like no time he was finished and photographs revealed to me, that which I cannot see when I look at myself in the mirror, but now know lives within my skin: A key to unlock my ears. This key, given back to me from you, it was the perfect symbol. The jailer's key, meant to liberate people from shackles and strife, it slides now into the barrel of my right ear. Winding through it to my left brain over nerves and synapses, this key reminds me to listen to what is being said, instead of just reacting to how I think something is being said. It reminds me to remain objective and be proactive by engaging from the heart, instead of being reactionary and alienating those I wish to understand from my side. This key clears the path for my heart and my head to become one, making me a stronger more open person. It reminds me that locks do not belong on my mind or my spirit, that I should be free and allow others to access me so that we can share and build together.
This key was given to me by a woman I love more than anything, a woman I will keep in my heart and my soul for all time. That woman is you. Thank you for helping me to grow and embrace my life and my heart. I am keeping the lesson with me, a living talisman breathing and burning in my skin, forever. Come what may between us, I will always heed the reminder that key bears and keep my mind and my heart open and receptive. I will remember to listen more to those I love and to be more giving of myself. This key has granted me freedom from the bounds of pain and anguish. I wear it proudly, feeling each pin inside the barrel spring free and the irons that used to muzzle me fall away. I am free, liberated, and I am loving it.
Your love alone has graced me with this perception. I believe that this is why we were brought together. I can't say yet what will play out in our futures, shared or separate. But I can tell you, you will always be the one that allowed me to unlock my mind from a place ruled over by pain and terror. You have taught me that life is worth embracing and that freedom is worth relishing, that gratitude and love are core values I should project instead of secret away. I have a new vantage point with which to behold myself and all those whom I encounter in my future. You told me once, that I was the one who had possessed the key to your Heart Garden all along, that you had thought you were meant to give the key to that person until you discovered I had let myself in with my own key. You were right in a way, you did have a key to bestow to another, and now that it has found its home the way will remain unlocked for you sempiternal.
Thank you, for setting me free.
Today I woke with a song for you still being sung by the swallow flying proudly over my heart. It was song of light silvery flute tones and the twanging of tinny banjo strings. It wailed on the harmonica like a xylophone made from train whistles and sent you rays of sparkling sunshine and wildflowers in bloom. My swallow and I split a pair of twin smiles and sent kisses filled with warmth to your heart for healing. I am learning more and more each day that you are such a gift for me to have had in my life or my heart at all. Even if you never see me again, I will treasure and love you always, for you are an extreme blessing to all you meet. You have exposed a lasting lesson to me, and in the end, you have been my most profound teacher above all others. This lesson was long overdue, now that I am embracing it I am loving my life now more than ever. I am only wishing that someday you might be in it, as I must admit: I miss you fiercely.
As I dressed and cooked breakfast for my friends, I found peace and love radiate forth from my core. These acts of love and sharing myself with others are so beneficial. I am making myself more and more present to this fact with each and every forward motion. I am finding joy with as many people as I am lucky to encounter, each of them offering distinct and startling possibilities for mutual growth between us. To expose more of my personality that is giving and nurturing feels more authentic to my spirit than I have felt in so long, if ever, I don't know why I have remained protective that side of myself with venom and spite.
We ate in the brilliant yellow sunshine, feeling the breeze flirt with our skin. The day was clear and bright, it was magical to feel the moment washing over us. Just enjoying our time together, talking of this and that, everything was pointing towards today being a day of supreme good fortune for me. I was exhilarated. I thought of you all the time, but my thoughts were not clouded by pain or fear, they were calming in a steady loving kind of way. Gratitude filled my spirit and I washed my sorrow down the drain with the dish water. Spring is arriving and with it I send the Winter's chill kiss into the past.
Finally, we set out for my appointment. Lately, so many things seem dreamlike. Life runs like a breathtaking movie to me at times, and I am swept away with its majesty. We wound through city streets and singing, talking, and dancing along the way. What an adventure it all is, I marvel at its potential and fill my lungs with air that I know will fortify my spirit. It is singing on the wind with my swallow's song, possibility is beckoning me to it at every turn. And I find with childlike wonder, the more I indulge and follow my heart, more and more I am lead to the life I have always imagined could be mine. I am blossoming into a kind of deep and lasting comfort with myself. I am finding that connecting with others, known or otherwise, has become an medicinal activity for me as I relinquish control and allow myself to be authentic to me and my true wishes.
Through it all, I love you still. I am proud to carry you with me here, in my heart with lasting gratitude and the glow of bliss. We arrived at the fire engine red storefront it's fileteado porteno style brought me back to Argentina. The highly stylized banner above blared out "COLD STEEL TATTOO PARLOR" in a bold golden color and my heart felt easy and light. Inside we found Kevin, he would be my tattoo artist for the day. His voice was kind and had a kind of easy musical quality to it. You felt soothed and happy in his presence, his demeanor was infectious and we found ourselves beaming. He was covered in tattoos and his chops made him look like he was cut out of a carnival, his easy southern drawl adding to the effect. I could just see him working the milk bottle booth or the strong man stand, heckling the passers-by with his warm smile and shoot from the hip humor. His hands were large with flat weathered palms and hairy knuckles. When he shook my hand though, it was with a kind of gentle firmness one might not expect and his eyes twinkled like an imp.
He asked me to confirm I was there for the tattoo I had spoken about and I was happy to agree with him. I was ready if he was! Hidden in my back pocket, was a pouch we bought at APE this last year. When I pulled it from my pocket and unzipped it, a rush of memories came flooding back to me from our time together there. Thank you for sharing my passions with me, for coming and involving yourself. If it wasn't for you doing that, always being so encouraging of me and my wishes, and spurring me onto a place of positivity even when I was downtrodden and despondent, I don't think I would have these memories to look back on. Thank you for everything you have given me. I reached into the pouch and slid out a small gun metal black handcuff key, bound to a key chain that bore the winking lights of Las Vegas. It was fitting, that the beginning of it all should be with me now. I handed it to him, trusting him with this very physical reminder of all we have shared.
When he returned I placed it into its padded home and slid it into my back pocket. He lead us back to his studio, and shut us inside. The walls were bathed in a deep blood red. They were lined with taxidermy projects, jarred chicken hearts, macabre art, pictures of wild animals, tattoo flash and along the wall at least 3 dozen movies and cds. Tom Waits drifted from his mac book and my smile splayed across my face wide and easy. We spoke freely, the 4 of us leap frogging in and out of conversation. We sat back and let the moment overtake us. Soon I was lying down on the table, my right ear facing upwards. He ran the razor's edge against my hairline, shaving away any peach fuzz which would keep the ink from taking all the way. Then he held my head and squeezed gently, letting the stencil set before peeling it away slowly. I laid still but comfortable feeling my chest rise and fall.
The needles buzzed to life across the room and I felt my skin tingle. Soon the points of the size 5 needles were humming in my skull. Above the grating reverb, the sounds of Lynard Skynard, Johnny Cash, and Merle Haggard made my smile unfold in a sweetly pensive way. Were you with me just as you always are, or was it just my imagination? My ears rang with the whirring sound of the tattoo gun, this was the deepest kiss I had had thus far by this electric siren. My skull echoed back with pulsing flickers of the hollow sound of bone being drilled. This was the sensation of a 1,000 tiny bee stings prickling along my neck and head, the biting slice of the outline feeling like a razor's edge carving into my skull, the curving burn as the tight clean lines were embedded into my skin. The pain was nothing, I relished it while it lasted, knowing that like all things in life the moment was fleeting and held its own kind of beauty. The outline was done before I knew it, due in part to his light easy touch, but also to his dulcet voice. He spoke of a thousand things and I felt a little like he was winding me along on a journey made of story and adventure.
Even when he slid his chair back from the table and switched to the rounded needles to complete the shading his voice carried across the studio space and into my ringing ears. I felt the soreness bleed into my neck and head for the first time without his tattoo gun buzzing in my ear to distract me. While he put on the shading and the highlights he curled his arm around me, holding me in a kind of tight embrace. His muscles felt solid and warm against my form and it lulled me into the same kind of comfort I had felt when I fell asleep with my head in your lap for the first time. This was trust, the warm feeling spreading over my limbs and outwards. I relaxed into the sensations, surprised that the fills were not bothering me as much as they used to. In the past, I used to become angry when the fills were going into my tattoos. This time, I had only fleeting pockets of irritation mostly because the sensations were strong and difficult at times to breathe through. Even in spite of this, I was content and calm, the experience was catharsis.
In what seemed like no time he was finished and photographs revealed to me, that which I cannot see when I look at myself in the mirror, but now know lives within my skin: A key to unlock my ears. This key, given back to me from you, it was the perfect symbol. The jailer's key, meant to liberate people from shackles and strife, it slides now into the barrel of my right ear. Winding through it to my left brain over nerves and synapses, this key reminds me to listen to what is being said, instead of just reacting to how I think something is being said. It reminds me to remain objective and be proactive by engaging from the heart, instead of being reactionary and alienating those I wish to understand from my side. This key clears the path for my heart and my head to become one, making me a stronger more open person. It reminds me that locks do not belong on my mind or my spirit, that I should be free and allow others to access me so that we can share and build together.
This key was given to me by a woman I love more than anything, a woman I will keep in my heart and my soul for all time. That woman is you. Thank you for helping me to grow and embrace my life and my heart. I am keeping the lesson with me, a living talisman breathing and burning in my skin, forever. Come what may between us, I will always heed the reminder that key bears and keep my mind and my heart open and receptive. I will remember to listen more to those I love and to be more giving of myself. This key has granted me freedom from the bounds of pain and anguish. I wear it proudly, feeling each pin inside the barrel spring free and the irons that used to muzzle me fall away. I am free, liberated, and I am loving it.
Your love alone has graced me with this perception. I believe that this is why we were brought together. I can't say yet what will play out in our futures, shared or separate. But I can tell you, you will always be the one that allowed me to unlock my mind from a place ruled over by pain and terror. You have taught me that life is worth embracing and that freedom is worth relishing, that gratitude and love are core values I should project instead of secret away. I have a new vantage point with which to behold myself and all those whom I encounter in my future. You told me once, that I was the one who had possessed the key to your Heart Garden all along, that you had thought you were meant to give the key to that person until you discovered I had let myself in with my own key. You were right in a way, you did have a key to bestow to another, and now that it has found its home the way will remain unlocked for you sempiternal.
Thank you, for setting me free.
Friday, March 12, 2010
Twenty Eight 03.12.10
The sky is covered again with slate gray clouds. Rain falls like liquid diamonds to the ground, soaking everything in its weight, its luster. I feel a deep echo each time my heart beats and utters your name. I am a lonely artist, my muse has fled, and I am left alone pining after her. Hoping that I am not driving her away with my desperate need to love her, my persistence, my gentle heart calling out to her in the most persuasive tones it can muster. This is not codependency, no this is devotion. Many people can mistake those two, I pray that you have eyes sharp enough to see the difference. Gods how I miss your every feature. And yet, I do not cower away from the light and life around me. To the contrary, I go out and find myself in it. I reflect it in almost all that I do now. I live according to my passions and my dreams, my heart speaks to me and tells me this is the right course. But it also whispers your name, over and over, and the only thing to quell this yearning is to look back and read what you have written, what you have said.
I am reading some of your stories which you used to send to me. It occurs to me suddenly that most of your stories were tragic romances. They were always about one character madly passionately in love with the heroine. The reason those characters in your stories were in love with the object of their every desire was no mystery the way you painted them. They were flawed but gorgeous. Worthy of total abandonment of ego and worship. And the central character whose eyes we spied all through, well, they were sad lonely creatures. Usually hiding their talents, basking in the glow of their unrequited love. They were strung along in the undertow of love's grasp. Usually, they were unaware and perfectly happy in a certain kind of melancholy way to be dragged against sharp coves made of unfulfilled love and tangled up in seaweed spun from adulation. In the end, they were usually abandoned in these stories by the heroine; left there bereft of their warmth like empty seashells or spent beer bottles. There was never a happy ending, never even an ending that offered closure, or a chance for peace, or for them to be reunited. Only longing, only loneliness and soul shattering grief. That was their parting gift for having loved openly, but non-reciprocally: their misery.
I never told you why reading those stories, although beautifully written and haunting left me feeling sick and uneasy did I? I'll tell you why now... It wasn’t that I couldn't or didn't want to offer you support and capture every word you laid to paper with my hungry starving eyes. It wasn't that I didn't enjoy reading your writing, I would fucking die to spend the rest of my days in a heaven populated only by your tales, your poetry, your words, your imagination. It wasn't for a moment that I didn't have the desire or motivation to let what you had transcribed there project vivid picture shows on the backs of my eyelids while I read the words. No, I have always LOVED reading everything you write. But those stories, they started to make me more and more uncomfortable as time went on. Here we were right? Here we were happy, you were so in love with me and I with you, and all you could write about was failed lovers. All you could dream up for an ending was break up after break up that left one of the characters free and the other drowning in misery. I started to wonder then, were you trying to tell me something?
Were you like the heroines in your tales ready to cast me off like dead weight and sail forth, never to return to me again? Was I becoming one of those sad tales in your stories? Was I the pathetic wretch in love with you and doomed to loose you while you were the goddess that put up with me this whole time? Why were the only love stories you could write ones that ended painfully? Didn't you have it in your heart to experience anything other than that fearful ending? Especially now, that you said you found the one you wanted to be with, couldn't you give me one happy ending? One were the heroines stayed in love and were good for each other. Was this all you wrote about because it was all you knew of love? Was it your silent fears given life on the page, or just your painful past repeating itself with new scenery each time?
In reality, despite the nagging fears these stories sometimes produced in my heart, this is what I know to be true: YOU are my champion of love convincing me that it is worth having in my heart when I was closed off and afraid of it. Even though in the beginning I was SO resistant and difficult to bear with my run away dog ways, you bore through that resistance. You fed me by hand with trust, gentleness, and force of sheer stubborn perseverance. And when you needed to, you did not back down, you stood up to me and my tantrums and put me in my place: between your ribs.
And when you asked me for my heart, I gave it to you. I gave it to you and you filled it up to overflowing. Did I tell you how when I first met you I was so afraid of you because you reminded me of my first love? I know you think I told you this as a comparison between two people. Perhaps I mistakenly FRAMED it that way with my words, because I was unable to fully articulate what I was feeling. I know what that feeling was now.
She was like a flooded creek, rushing suddenly and raising everything with it. She set a new record for high water on my heart the year I met her. I had not surpassed it, not even come close since, until I met you. You were like a tsunami, a monsoon, and a hurricane converging at once. My world was bathed in water. You are the high water mark that Hunter S. Thompson wrote about. And just like you wrote about once, you slit your throat into a neat set of gills and played in the currents your love provoked in my crimson sea. Your love baptized my heart and I was born again. You were stronger and better than my first love. You are more than all my loves now or henceforth ever combined.
You were everything I wanted and dreamed of, and more. You still are. Even now, while you say you are out learning to become more, connected to me through this distance by your own heart's admission, I can feel you in my heart and I know that this love is not a memory. I assure you, this is not merely dependence, or obsession, or afterglow. This love is present and very, very real. Please tell me you understand what I am trying to say to you: you made me forget why I was so hung up on her for so long, because you showed me love could transcend that level. You were like falling in love all over for the first time, only I was scared, so scared to loose you, so scared of the pain I thought for sure was coming. It was YOUR love that made me able to see, that was the past and I did not want after it with anything as long as you were in my sights.
Seven galaxies show down on me through the rainclouds above. Maps are strewn everywhere until I can’t tell which direction you are going anymore. Black Hole Sun plays through the radio of my car's speakers while I sit at the top of Skyline and contemplate if you will one day write that I tried to break you down; that I tried to stamp out your fire and fill your whirling winds with cancerous smoke. I hope you remember, if you ever feel that way, what you have said to me: that you could not ever and do not resent me. Not even if you tried. That you know I am a good person who loves you with my whole spirit and heart. My water, my fire, my earth, my air, my spirit, all elements combine as one to help to cleanse and refresh your elements. My every wish is that you burn brightly and sail on with the force of a true Easterly wind. BART trains and MUNI buses wheeze and bark in metallic screeches and I hear glass breaking somewhere against a wall, as if someone threw a bottle down like a gauntlet. Someone near by screams and I hear it echo off the empty tunnel I am standing in. I am waiting for a train to come and fetch me. I am waiting to board and let its doors hiss close like it is hermetically sealing me in a time capsule. I am waiting for it to shuttle me away to stops I will not name for the journey is the true adventure not the destination.
Yes we are on a journey my love, I know this. Separate for now, but assuredly these paths with reunite. When they do, I hope we can put this confusion behind us, stand facing each other knowing always that we are the ones that possess each other’s happy ending. Until then, my heart has a high water mark all around and inside of its every surface. This level will never be reached again. The salty residue left from it bears your moniker. As it beats I am hearing it pulse your name into the world around me: Sasha, Sasha, Sasha, Sasha, Sasha, Sasha, Sasha, Sasha…..
I am reading some of your stories which you used to send to me. It occurs to me suddenly that most of your stories were tragic romances. They were always about one character madly passionately in love with the heroine. The reason those characters in your stories were in love with the object of their every desire was no mystery the way you painted them. They were flawed but gorgeous. Worthy of total abandonment of ego and worship. And the central character whose eyes we spied all through, well, they were sad lonely creatures. Usually hiding their talents, basking in the glow of their unrequited love. They were strung along in the undertow of love's grasp. Usually, they were unaware and perfectly happy in a certain kind of melancholy way to be dragged against sharp coves made of unfulfilled love and tangled up in seaweed spun from adulation. In the end, they were usually abandoned in these stories by the heroine; left there bereft of their warmth like empty seashells or spent beer bottles. There was never a happy ending, never even an ending that offered closure, or a chance for peace, or for them to be reunited. Only longing, only loneliness and soul shattering grief. That was their parting gift for having loved openly, but non-reciprocally: their misery.
I never told you why reading those stories, although beautifully written and haunting left me feeling sick and uneasy did I? I'll tell you why now... It wasn’t that I couldn't or didn't want to offer you support and capture every word you laid to paper with my hungry starving eyes. It wasn't that I didn't enjoy reading your writing, I would fucking die to spend the rest of my days in a heaven populated only by your tales, your poetry, your words, your imagination. It wasn't for a moment that I didn't have the desire or motivation to let what you had transcribed there project vivid picture shows on the backs of my eyelids while I read the words. No, I have always LOVED reading everything you write. But those stories, they started to make me more and more uncomfortable as time went on. Here we were right? Here we were happy, you were so in love with me and I with you, and all you could write about was failed lovers. All you could dream up for an ending was break up after break up that left one of the characters free and the other drowning in misery. I started to wonder then, were you trying to tell me something?
Were you like the heroines in your tales ready to cast me off like dead weight and sail forth, never to return to me again? Was I becoming one of those sad tales in your stories? Was I the pathetic wretch in love with you and doomed to loose you while you were the goddess that put up with me this whole time? Why were the only love stories you could write ones that ended painfully? Didn't you have it in your heart to experience anything other than that fearful ending? Especially now, that you said you found the one you wanted to be with, couldn't you give me one happy ending? One were the heroines stayed in love and were good for each other. Was this all you wrote about because it was all you knew of love? Was it your silent fears given life on the page, or just your painful past repeating itself with new scenery each time?
In reality, despite the nagging fears these stories sometimes produced in my heart, this is what I know to be true: YOU are my champion of love convincing me that it is worth having in my heart when I was closed off and afraid of it. Even though in the beginning I was SO resistant and difficult to bear with my run away dog ways, you bore through that resistance. You fed me by hand with trust, gentleness, and force of sheer stubborn perseverance. And when you needed to, you did not back down, you stood up to me and my tantrums and put me in my place: between your ribs.
And when you asked me for my heart, I gave it to you. I gave it to you and you filled it up to overflowing. Did I tell you how when I first met you I was so afraid of you because you reminded me of my first love? I know you think I told you this as a comparison between two people. Perhaps I mistakenly FRAMED it that way with my words, because I was unable to fully articulate what I was feeling. I know what that feeling was now.
She was like a flooded creek, rushing suddenly and raising everything with it. She set a new record for high water on my heart the year I met her. I had not surpassed it, not even come close since, until I met you. You were like a tsunami, a monsoon, and a hurricane converging at once. My world was bathed in water. You are the high water mark that Hunter S. Thompson wrote about. And just like you wrote about once, you slit your throat into a neat set of gills and played in the currents your love provoked in my crimson sea. Your love baptized my heart and I was born again. You were stronger and better than my first love. You are more than all my loves now or henceforth ever combined.
You were everything I wanted and dreamed of, and more. You still are. Even now, while you say you are out learning to become more, connected to me through this distance by your own heart's admission, I can feel you in my heart and I know that this love is not a memory. I assure you, this is not merely dependence, or obsession, or afterglow. This love is present and very, very real. Please tell me you understand what I am trying to say to you: you made me forget why I was so hung up on her for so long, because you showed me love could transcend that level. You were like falling in love all over for the first time, only I was scared, so scared to loose you, so scared of the pain I thought for sure was coming. It was YOUR love that made me able to see, that was the past and I did not want after it with anything as long as you were in my sights.
Seven galaxies show down on me through the rainclouds above. Maps are strewn everywhere until I can’t tell which direction you are going anymore. Black Hole Sun plays through the radio of my car's speakers while I sit at the top of Skyline and contemplate if you will one day write that I tried to break you down; that I tried to stamp out your fire and fill your whirling winds with cancerous smoke. I hope you remember, if you ever feel that way, what you have said to me: that you could not ever and do not resent me. Not even if you tried. That you know I am a good person who loves you with my whole spirit and heart. My water, my fire, my earth, my air, my spirit, all elements combine as one to help to cleanse and refresh your elements. My every wish is that you burn brightly and sail on with the force of a true Easterly wind. BART trains and MUNI buses wheeze and bark in metallic screeches and I hear glass breaking somewhere against a wall, as if someone threw a bottle down like a gauntlet. Someone near by screams and I hear it echo off the empty tunnel I am standing in. I am waiting for a train to come and fetch me. I am waiting to board and let its doors hiss close like it is hermetically sealing me in a time capsule. I am waiting for it to shuttle me away to stops I will not name for the journey is the true adventure not the destination.
Yes we are on a journey my love, I know this. Separate for now, but assuredly these paths with reunite. When they do, I hope we can put this confusion behind us, stand facing each other knowing always that we are the ones that possess each other’s happy ending. Until then, my heart has a high water mark all around and inside of its every surface. This level will never be reached again. The salty residue left from it bears your moniker. As it beats I am hearing it pulse your name into the world around me: Sasha, Sasha, Sasha, Sasha, Sasha, Sasha, Sasha, Sasha…..
Thursday, March 11, 2010
Twenty Seven 03.11.10
I'm lonesome for your scars today.
I wish I could read them like braille, with my finger tips, my tongue, my teeth, and my lips; like I used to, like you asked me to once upon a time. As if I could ever keep my hands off you, especially those exquisite scars. You used to call some of them ugly. But I never saw them that way, I still don't, even though I haven't seen you in almost a month. To me, they were always your merit badges that you earned growing up; learning how to love yourself in spite of the fact that razors and acetone used to be like roses and baby's breath for your skin.
You used to have a love affair with your inner demons so passionate that it almost killed you. That's a love affair I know all too well. I may not have cut as deep as you used to, but I used to cut just to see myself bleed, and I used to punish my skin to feel that sandpaper burning. I used to hide in dark closets, or bathroom stalls, or attics and rend my skin in a repetitive fashion that looked something like a chain link fence when I was done.
Welting up in pink and red and that strange yellow at the edges, this was my undoing. This was me trying to make sense of the pain I felt on the inside. Trying my best to put my weight behind my convictions steeped Catholic school guilt into my skin and make it scar. Leave a mark, a trail for me to follow, and help me feel LESS next time I ran my hand over it. But I had to be careful you see, I couldn't get caught. Mommy and Daddy wouldn't have liked that very much. They had ENOUGH to deal with out of me. Never mind having to lock up every razor blade in my art kits, every box cutter in the basement tool boxes, every kitchen knife, every pair of scissors, and let us not forget the covert but very effective safety pin.
No I could only cut myself in whispers, hushed little tones, piled up on top of each other so much they were as bold as if you were screaming. This was like having sex with your lover while your roommate was asleep in the room. Only the sounds of heavy breathing, panting, and slick wet movements fast but jerking. This was me hiding, gasping for breath, keeping my hand clamped over my mouth or biting the inside of my cheek while I let the blades sing; just teasing the skin enough to split it open.
It was not for lack of bravery that I did not cut deeper. My god no, we all know by now, I can cut very deep without hesitation. It's just that at that time, I valued my privacy, my freedom, and no one was going to tell me what to do or not do with my skin and sharp steel blade. These "abrasions" they would heal over and disappear after only a few days. And I would miss them so badly. They never left scars. If they did, they would fade over time to a brilliant white and then fade from view like a photograph left in the sun too long looses its exposure. I have no merit badges on the pale white sash we call my skin to display, proving that I was once part of your troupe. I have no scars left to prove what I have unleashed on myself in my violent past.
But you have the scars now to prove you came back from that place.
You wear sundresses and crinoline and smile with with teeth that are less than perfect and hair that refuses to tame. You dance like a stripper and a goddess are having sex in the sway of your hips. You spread your thighs to me and let me cover all your scars with kisses and I felt absolution every time I had a chance to touch them. Your scars are beautiful, they tell the story of everything you have been through, and everywhere you will go. Your scars sing me opera and grunge rock, a strange but lulling duet, and I find myself weeping at its beauty.
The last time I cut myself was almost 2 year ago. It was when I first had met you and I was laid off, unemployed, reeling in a world of D.P.D that only you were saving me from. I was terrified because I was already in love with you and I knew somehow, this would ruin me. I knew you were the one even then and I couldn't take that someday for some reason I couldn't understand I thought you would leave me behind. It was in your house, in the tiny bathroom downstairs that always reminded me of a ship's bathroom. I was leaning over the toilet with my pants shoved down to my knees and I was standing as I pulled the long thick safety pin from my pants pocket and drove it in, splitting the skin.
I was stopping to listen for you, because I was sure you were going to come down and catch me. I was frightened like a little mouse being stalked by cats, hiding under the bed, hoping you wouldn't hear me. I was starting to sweat, and I realized, I was starting to bleed. They were just a few little drops welling up, not even spilling down yet. I stopped. I dropped the safety pin to the ground realizing I didn't want to do this anymore. I didn't want to be like this for you. I just wanted some fucking scars to remind me I don't have to go back to this place, that I have been here so many fucking times and it never gets better.
It was "nothing" really. I don't think I bled much, I don't even remember it hurting the way I wanted it to. I remember I pulled up my pants and came upstairs. I think I told you that night, didn't I? Or was it later? I know I told you, because I remember that look on your face so clearly. Like I crushed a small baby bird in my hands and you heard its porcelain bones breaking. You reached for me with your scarred arms and you made me feel beautiful in that moment. Like it was important to you for some fucking reason I didn't leave those marks on my body. As if even though you understood the motivation behind it, you didn't want me to feel that desperate. That you were consoled, even though I did it, by the fact that I felt safe enough to tell you.
Before that I don't want to remember when I cut last. I think if I were going to be honest it was maybe 8 months before I met you...When I was left spinning in the destructive whirlwind she left me in. It was one night after she filled up my mind with all that garbage that I was pathetic, useless, full of wasted talents and poor survival instincts. That package of razor blades I bought to remove paint from wood started looking real fucking inviting as I sat alone in our apartment staring at our separate rooms. I think then too it was really "nothing." Just a one time thing, like when you have quit smoking but take a single drag off your friend's cigarette one night when you are drunk. I just did a few cuts on one thigh...it was like tease, just enough to get your dick half hard but not enough to overcome the whiskey in your blood.
Before that it was a early fall in the year of our lord 2004. I was starting to spiral into a major depression and D.P.D at the time. Only I didn't know what to call it. I never knew what to call this cycle until I met you. When you explained that to me, I felt like you understood me. You were explaining to me what my ex wife, my parents, and all my friends could never begin to understand. You knew it, because you had it too. I was living in a world that was continuously muting itself out and I was becoming numb to everything. I was detaching my mind from my own history, and disconnecting my human connections because they seemed suddenly strange and vapid to me.
I was fading away into nothingness and self hatred. The only thing bringing me back was that pain. For the first time since high school after I got raped, I cut myself to ribbons in my Ontario, California apartment bathroom. I refused to undress in front of my wife when we slept or made love, which was not happening very much any longer anyway. Those were some of the deepest cuts I've ever inflicted on myself, because back then, I needed to bleed a lot just to know I was still alive and real. But no one was the wiser, I was the love child of Harry Houdini and Jack the Ripper. I was cutting my own escape route out of my skin in places no one would think to look. And my skin, it bore no tale tell signs, because I am doctor's daughter and I know how to cover my tracks.
By then, I had gone through workshops in BDSM classes on knife play. My skills were constantly evolving. I could make a small blade sing across your skin and you would never know the difference between that and a kiss. I know you know what I am talking about, because you have let me wander your untainted spaces of lily white skin with my blade before and I have felt you tremble in pleasure. You trusted me and for once I made that act something healthy for both of us. It wasn't about pain, it was about pleasure and finding each other without scars. It was about being vulnerable instead of numb. It was about consent and sanity and love between us. And I have never left a mark on your body that would bear witness to it. Only our memory is scarred with that secret now.
Before college it was back in high school, the year I got raped, I really loved cutting myself then. It was comforting, like penance, for allowing him to violate me. For allowing myself to keep it a secret for 6 years like a prison sentence. That year I think I started cutting again because it was something familiar. Something I had used in the past to drown out the pain, to increase my tolerance of it. But I had to stop, because boarding school is a tricky place to get away with something like that. And I could not afford to not be clever any longer. When the PTSD wore off and I started remembering EVERYTHING he said and did to me, I stopped cutting. I didn't need anymore pain. I had PLENTY of material to cut myself up in my head from then on.
Before that it was middle school. That was the first time I ever cut. It was my discovery of how all sharp object where my friends; even the inner workings of pens held material I could work with when needed. I was hiding in the closet of my room in the dark, tugging on my hair like fucking swing set chains until some of it would tear our sometimes. Well we couldn't have that, surely they would start to notice that. I was rocking back and forth and biting myself. But that was leaving bruises and bite marks and I had a hard enough time hiding hickeys from the adolescence boys I was sucking off back then trying to drown out my latent gay desires. I was stabbing my arms with needles, yes this was better, this I could do without leaving so many marks. And then I was ripping up the skin on my thighs and the sides of my ribs with blades, this was the best pain, the kind I wanted most. That slicing, tearing, stinging like you just wanted to go deeper until you cut something off kind of pain.
I was learning then for the first time that this activity, although truly sickening, was like praying in Catholic mass. It was a ritual I slipped into as easily as sitting and standing when the priest gives the word. It was a ritual I indulged in like many others I would come to know, but later discard. This one, above all others, even smoking I have had the most trouble dislodging as I have grown up. I have come back to cutting so many times and each time I pray, I PRAY for scars. But they never have come. I will never cut again because I know by now, my skin stubbornly heals and mocks my attempts to brand myself a survivor of my past. I can't keep repeating it expecting it to go away. I have to leave it behind me with finality, even though I wish I had scars still to tell the tale like you have.
The only scars I miss now:
are yours.
In sunshine and in darkness your scars are always beautiful to me. Just like all your flaws I am in love with them as much as I am in love with the sweetness of your smile. I am in love with your scars because they make you real, and show that you are sensitive, so fucking sensitive underneath the crass exterior you sport. You are a fragile baby bird in my hands and I want to hold you and make you a nest in my ribs. You are covered in scars that bear testimony to your resilience but I know tender pieces of you that I would love to hold and run my fingers over gently. I would love to still you in my love and cherish you with my honor. I am missing your scars girl, I am missing them with every scrap of flesh I call my body. I am missing your scars with my soul and my heart. I am missing your scars, because they are always so gorgeous to me, just like you are.
I wish I could read them like braille, with my finger tips, my tongue, my teeth, and my lips; like I used to, like you asked me to once upon a time. As if I could ever keep my hands off you, especially those exquisite scars. You used to call some of them ugly. But I never saw them that way, I still don't, even though I haven't seen you in almost a month. To me, they were always your merit badges that you earned growing up; learning how to love yourself in spite of the fact that razors and acetone used to be like roses and baby's breath for your skin.
You used to have a love affair with your inner demons so passionate that it almost killed you. That's a love affair I know all too well. I may not have cut as deep as you used to, but I used to cut just to see myself bleed, and I used to punish my skin to feel that sandpaper burning. I used to hide in dark closets, or bathroom stalls, or attics and rend my skin in a repetitive fashion that looked something like a chain link fence when I was done.
Welting up in pink and red and that strange yellow at the edges, this was my undoing. This was me trying to make sense of the pain I felt on the inside. Trying my best to put my weight behind my convictions steeped Catholic school guilt into my skin and make it scar. Leave a mark, a trail for me to follow, and help me feel LESS next time I ran my hand over it. But I had to be careful you see, I couldn't get caught. Mommy and Daddy wouldn't have liked that very much. They had ENOUGH to deal with out of me. Never mind having to lock up every razor blade in my art kits, every box cutter in the basement tool boxes, every kitchen knife, every pair of scissors, and let us not forget the covert but very effective safety pin.
No I could only cut myself in whispers, hushed little tones, piled up on top of each other so much they were as bold as if you were screaming. This was like having sex with your lover while your roommate was asleep in the room. Only the sounds of heavy breathing, panting, and slick wet movements fast but jerking. This was me hiding, gasping for breath, keeping my hand clamped over my mouth or biting the inside of my cheek while I let the blades sing; just teasing the skin enough to split it open.
It was not for lack of bravery that I did not cut deeper. My god no, we all know by now, I can cut very deep without hesitation. It's just that at that time, I valued my privacy, my freedom, and no one was going to tell me what to do or not do with my skin and sharp steel blade. These "abrasions" they would heal over and disappear after only a few days. And I would miss them so badly. They never left scars. If they did, they would fade over time to a brilliant white and then fade from view like a photograph left in the sun too long looses its exposure. I have no merit badges on the pale white sash we call my skin to display, proving that I was once part of your troupe. I have no scars left to prove what I have unleashed on myself in my violent past.
But you have the scars now to prove you came back from that place.
You wear sundresses and crinoline and smile with with teeth that are less than perfect and hair that refuses to tame. You dance like a stripper and a goddess are having sex in the sway of your hips. You spread your thighs to me and let me cover all your scars with kisses and I felt absolution every time I had a chance to touch them. Your scars are beautiful, they tell the story of everything you have been through, and everywhere you will go. Your scars sing me opera and grunge rock, a strange but lulling duet, and I find myself weeping at its beauty.
The last time I cut myself was almost 2 year ago. It was when I first had met you and I was laid off, unemployed, reeling in a world of D.P.D that only you were saving me from. I was terrified because I was already in love with you and I knew somehow, this would ruin me. I knew you were the one even then and I couldn't take that someday for some reason I couldn't understand I thought you would leave me behind. It was in your house, in the tiny bathroom downstairs that always reminded me of a ship's bathroom. I was leaning over the toilet with my pants shoved down to my knees and I was standing as I pulled the long thick safety pin from my pants pocket and drove it in, splitting the skin.
I was stopping to listen for you, because I was sure you were going to come down and catch me. I was frightened like a little mouse being stalked by cats, hiding under the bed, hoping you wouldn't hear me. I was starting to sweat, and I realized, I was starting to bleed. They were just a few little drops welling up, not even spilling down yet. I stopped. I dropped the safety pin to the ground realizing I didn't want to do this anymore. I didn't want to be like this for you. I just wanted some fucking scars to remind me I don't have to go back to this place, that I have been here so many fucking times and it never gets better.
It was "nothing" really. I don't think I bled much, I don't even remember it hurting the way I wanted it to. I remember I pulled up my pants and came upstairs. I think I told you that night, didn't I? Or was it later? I know I told you, because I remember that look on your face so clearly. Like I crushed a small baby bird in my hands and you heard its porcelain bones breaking. You reached for me with your scarred arms and you made me feel beautiful in that moment. Like it was important to you for some fucking reason I didn't leave those marks on my body. As if even though you understood the motivation behind it, you didn't want me to feel that desperate. That you were consoled, even though I did it, by the fact that I felt safe enough to tell you.
Before that I don't want to remember when I cut last. I think if I were going to be honest it was maybe 8 months before I met you...When I was left spinning in the destructive whirlwind she left me in. It was one night after she filled up my mind with all that garbage that I was pathetic, useless, full of wasted talents and poor survival instincts. That package of razor blades I bought to remove paint from wood started looking real fucking inviting as I sat alone in our apartment staring at our separate rooms. I think then too it was really "nothing." Just a one time thing, like when you have quit smoking but take a single drag off your friend's cigarette one night when you are drunk. I just did a few cuts on one thigh...it was like tease, just enough to get your dick half hard but not enough to overcome the whiskey in your blood.
Before that it was a early fall in the year of our lord 2004. I was starting to spiral into a major depression and D.P.D at the time. Only I didn't know what to call it. I never knew what to call this cycle until I met you. When you explained that to me, I felt like you understood me. You were explaining to me what my ex wife, my parents, and all my friends could never begin to understand. You knew it, because you had it too. I was living in a world that was continuously muting itself out and I was becoming numb to everything. I was detaching my mind from my own history, and disconnecting my human connections because they seemed suddenly strange and vapid to me.
I was fading away into nothingness and self hatred. The only thing bringing me back was that pain. For the first time since high school after I got raped, I cut myself to ribbons in my Ontario, California apartment bathroom. I refused to undress in front of my wife when we slept or made love, which was not happening very much any longer anyway. Those were some of the deepest cuts I've ever inflicted on myself, because back then, I needed to bleed a lot just to know I was still alive and real. But no one was the wiser, I was the love child of Harry Houdini and Jack the Ripper. I was cutting my own escape route out of my skin in places no one would think to look. And my skin, it bore no tale tell signs, because I am doctor's daughter and I know how to cover my tracks.
By then, I had gone through workshops in BDSM classes on knife play. My skills were constantly evolving. I could make a small blade sing across your skin and you would never know the difference between that and a kiss. I know you know what I am talking about, because you have let me wander your untainted spaces of lily white skin with my blade before and I have felt you tremble in pleasure. You trusted me and for once I made that act something healthy for both of us. It wasn't about pain, it was about pleasure and finding each other without scars. It was about being vulnerable instead of numb. It was about consent and sanity and love between us. And I have never left a mark on your body that would bear witness to it. Only our memory is scarred with that secret now.
Before college it was back in high school, the year I got raped, I really loved cutting myself then. It was comforting, like penance, for allowing him to violate me. For allowing myself to keep it a secret for 6 years like a prison sentence. That year I think I started cutting again because it was something familiar. Something I had used in the past to drown out the pain, to increase my tolerance of it. But I had to stop, because boarding school is a tricky place to get away with something like that. And I could not afford to not be clever any longer. When the PTSD wore off and I started remembering EVERYTHING he said and did to me, I stopped cutting. I didn't need anymore pain. I had PLENTY of material to cut myself up in my head from then on.
Before that it was middle school. That was the first time I ever cut. It was my discovery of how all sharp object where my friends; even the inner workings of pens held material I could work with when needed. I was hiding in the closet of my room in the dark, tugging on my hair like fucking swing set chains until some of it would tear our sometimes. Well we couldn't have that, surely they would start to notice that. I was rocking back and forth and biting myself. But that was leaving bruises and bite marks and I had a hard enough time hiding hickeys from the adolescence boys I was sucking off back then trying to drown out my latent gay desires. I was stabbing my arms with needles, yes this was better, this I could do without leaving so many marks. And then I was ripping up the skin on my thighs and the sides of my ribs with blades, this was the best pain, the kind I wanted most. That slicing, tearing, stinging like you just wanted to go deeper until you cut something off kind of pain.
I was learning then for the first time that this activity, although truly sickening, was like praying in Catholic mass. It was a ritual I slipped into as easily as sitting and standing when the priest gives the word. It was a ritual I indulged in like many others I would come to know, but later discard. This one, above all others, even smoking I have had the most trouble dislodging as I have grown up. I have come back to cutting so many times and each time I pray, I PRAY for scars. But they never have come. I will never cut again because I know by now, my skin stubbornly heals and mocks my attempts to brand myself a survivor of my past. I can't keep repeating it expecting it to go away. I have to leave it behind me with finality, even though I wish I had scars still to tell the tale like you have.
The only scars I miss now:
are yours.
In sunshine and in darkness your scars are always beautiful to me. Just like all your flaws I am in love with them as much as I am in love with the sweetness of your smile. I am in love with your scars because they make you real, and show that you are sensitive, so fucking sensitive underneath the crass exterior you sport. You are a fragile baby bird in my hands and I want to hold you and make you a nest in my ribs. You are covered in scars that bear testimony to your resilience but I know tender pieces of you that I would love to hold and run my fingers over gently. I would love to still you in my love and cherish you with my honor. I am missing your scars girl, I am missing them with every scrap of flesh I call my body. I am missing your scars with my soul and my heart. I am missing your scars, because they are always so gorgeous to me, just like you are.
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Twenty Six 03.10.10
Has this all been an illusion? A strange vision I was sliding through unaware all the time of the stark contrasting reality that was about to break over me like shattering glass? Was it really true what you said to me, not so long ago, that you were more yourself with me than anyone ever before? Even the oldest and closest of your friends? Even your therapist? Even your parents?
You tell me this is too confusing for you, and that is why you can't be near me. This is the reason you can't speak to me, can't even cast your eyes to my face. You tell me that you don't know who you are when tethered within the confines of my love. But I am the one that is left now with a lingering sense of confusion. What is it about me that causes you to be remiss now about your very identity when previously you told me you felt more alive and yourself than you ever had, just even in my presence? How could I, who at least, have always tried...and maybe I have failed along the way...but always steadily tried to help you embrace and know yourself more and more...How could I cause you to doubt your very essence?
The sting of that rejection is steeped in lacing wounds that burn like the acrid taste of aspirin caught in the back of my throat. It is that burning salty drip, sliding down and filling each laceration, making them blossom in thick rising bands. They are new fresh hurts laid over what I thought was truth you were telling me. They will turn into new scars for my aching form. It tingles when I slide my hands over it now, like scar tissue. Was that truth? Or was that you lying to yourself and to me, because you wanted it to be so badly?
Were you the one deceiving yourself all this time? Were you trying to run away from your past and remold yourself into any new form? Did you bounce off of me and find with time, you wished to purge yourself of everything you had become while we loved each other? What now am I left to wonder? Do I trust what I believe is right, that you did share your heart and soul with me, and I know the truest you? How do I look now at your form, changing everyday like a chameleon's skin as you try on new identities that seem completely foreign to me? These colors, although not altogether alien, mix in a dizzying plaid that obscures the soul I thought I touched once. And, your continued silence, your austere unforgiving absence makes me tremble with a growing sense of dread.
Who are you? Who is the real you? Where are you going? What are you running from now? And why, why do you still return each day to read these words? If you have truly cast me away, then there is no reason to linger. There is no reason to wonder what I think or feel, especially in regards to you if you no longer care to have me in your heart, or have me back in your arms ever again. Especially since now, you are free, free to find yourself in the arms of countless others. Free to disown the bond you shared with me once. Free to refute that you ever let me savor all the delicate and bold flavors of your soul's nexus. I suppose that is why you had to embark on this journey in the first place.
But I'll tell you the truth, my love, for you are still my dearest love through all of this: Your projection of your own fears onto me, cuts me straight through the bone as if it was a heated wire through a block of melting ice. Forgive me, but I cannot accept the blame for that which you have tried to lay squarely at my feet; which you have tried to litter like black rose petals across the alter which once bore libations for our love. I take only responsibility for my own faults, for the things I truly have done with mistaken judgment. But you must also accept responsibility for what is yours and yours alone. I have yet to hear you release me from guilt for those sins which I have not committed.
I feel as though I am an actor that has been thrown into an absurd theater of life piece, penned by three hands at once belonging to Samuel Beckett, Eugene Ionesco and Jean Genet. This script is comprised of senseless dialogue and a distorted plot that attempts to convey the miscommunications which have passed between us and the irrationality of our severed everyday lives. In it, I am cast as some Shylock fiend who has stripped your of your singularity. Now we have reached the final battle where you will throw down the gauntlet and reveal me for the scoundrel that I am casting me off, free to be your own once more.
Alas, I cannot be the stand in for this role. I am an ill prepared understudy for this character, as it was never the one I was meant to be cast into. You are giving me frantic cues to play out my part from offstage, but I cannot comprehend them, because I never rehearsed for this part. I am wondering why you have thrust me on stage under the hot stage lights and the audience all around me bathed in darkness. You signal from the wings, but you are wearing the costume and the countenance for this role, and I look so very oddly out of place.
I surrender, listening to the creaking of wooden chairs and guttural throat clearing from the audience. I sigh and walk down center, pooled in a soft yellow spotlight. I raise my head, full front to the audience, I open up. The red satin of my cravat throws its crimson light into my eyes and the stage lights wink mercilessly from the cravat pin nestled betwixt my breasts. Its ring of rough black onyx stones encircle a generous ruby and sends little beams of light into the audience, dancing on the odd nose and eyebrow in the darkness. They are stirring in their seats and growing impatient. I do not mind them. I breath deeply, and projecting my voice, I begin my soliloquy. On the back of my strong but animated voice, my monologue is being carried into the far rafters of the mezzanine. You grow uneasy, winding the cord of the act curtain around your hands, threatening to send it crashing down on me. Threatening to bury me in silence forever.
I see you in my peripheral vision, taunting me by coming closer to stage right as if to explode into the scene, but then growing sick with stage fright and withdrawing. It must be unusual for you, to bear witness to this; the fact that I do not stutter or shake, that I hold firm to my true character through all this. The only change I have gone through now is that I display more and more the honest bearing I had all along laying dormant within me. Now it is you, turn all pale and worrying your bottom lip with sleepy teeth, blanking on your lines because this was not the part I am sure you expected me to play. And why would you, if you had cast me into this role from the very moment you selected your players?
Unbeknownst to me you were rehashing the script on your own time, playing out your monologues with other actors who were never intended for this scene. This once epic romance, this has now become a tragic farce. This has in some part come to pass because you stopped collaborating with me as your co-star. You turned director, playwright, and cast yourself as the unsuspecting heroine in one fatal pen stroke. You withheld your directions from me, you altered the backdrops and scenery, keeping these changes, these growing suspicions to yourself. Let us not be coy, it was not merely one month you had been withholding the new script from me. Tonight, as you attempted to drive me into this role, I saw with clarity as I reviewed the new script you handed me moments before you shooed me on the stage. You had ransacked the narrative, turning it from a sprawling verdant southern plantation garden into a dingy, claustrophobic, yet cumbersome kitchen sink.
You tried to press all its weight into me, so that I would be left bearing its weight alone. And I, foolish player, I took the brunt of it. I still held it, chained around my neck all the while shaking under its oppressive weight. I was wringing my hands in its soiled soapy water trying to clean up the messes that I have in fact made. Instants before you unclasped me and smacked my face with fresh cake powder, I had just made my final headway. The once grimy porcelain shown like snow, the fixtures glittered like freshly polished silver. But it did not matter to you how it had begun to shrink down as it became fresh, now no more than a thimble in size. You gave the warning, then the standby, and then as you gave the go you pushed me onto the stage. Here I stand, feeling the weathered boards of the stage beneath me, playing the part I was born to play: your unwavering lover. The one you swore you bore all to, the one you claimed never to withhold or hide from.
I do not avert my eyes. I stare straight into the darkness that blankets the audience as I slip into the moment, but I begin to see, through the murky black they are leaning in on the edge of their seats. In the climb of the rising act, they are straining to hear my every word as I bear testimony to a love that I will not forsake. No, I cannot forsake you even now, as you my cherished lady justice rip my soul asunder with a blind eye you have raised the blindfold away from. I can see that some of them, some of them swoon all lovestruck, while you remained at least to outward appearances completely unmoved. When I finish my last line, the air is thick with pregnant pause. The moment is suspended and I cast my eyes off stage to you. But you remain stone faced, the picture of unforgiving marble, still breathtaking in that moment as you ever were.
My heart calls out to you as I walk offstage, thunderous applause pushing after me, as I fly to the exit stairs. I do not even shed my costume, I only run bursting through the theater's fire doors and into the vacant alleyway. I spill into the chill air of the night. I crane my neck upwards and view the cruel stars spelling out your shape and mine, still dancing above me through the mist. I weave grief stricken and shocked that you would cast me in this light, bumping into the dirty bricks that squeeze in on me. As I near the end of the alleyway, my eyes blur with tears that feel like astringent to my tender cheeks. I hear voices, the tittering laughter of young girls, and a procession of sighs. I round the corner unawares, but it is too late to duck out of view. A crowd of unsuspecting girls has gathered, roses trembling in their hands, outstretched palms bearing small notebooks and programs. They swarm to my sides and I am surrounded. I grit my teeth and bear them in my best theatrical smile, swallowing my tears and the bile that wants to follow it.
I sign their names with poetically written salutations and compliment them all, a force of habit I have learned in the theater to keep up appearances. All the while, all I think about is you. My heart hammers at my sternum, have you forgotten who I am in the process of forgetting yourself? My hands and my skin shrink from their touches. My eyes do not linger on the flirtatious spark that shines from theirs. I gloss over the subtle double entendres that spill from their lips. And I outright, but debonairly repudiate the forward proclamations of others. Ironic, that what should drive them from me, the naked revelation that I am in love with a woman that will not have me emboldens them even more. I am sick with displeasure at this scene playing out before me, and I turn for a moment to see you exit out the fire door behind me.
You are moving gracefully through the alleyway, your skirts bellowing and being swept back against the brick walls swishing as you surge forward. You are the picture of grace and power. You are but ten feet from me, and I find myself pushing through the crowd's edge to block your path. Just as you come to face me, my knees buckle and I fall to them in the street. I grasp your hands, and they feel at once as hot as coals and as chill as ice. I plead with you silently, my eyes flowing. "Can't you see me?!" I cry out to you, strangled by my sorrow. Your eyes glide downwards, framed by thousands of long feathery lashes. Your gaze is shadowed but reveals all. "No," you whisper, and your fingers slide from mine as you disappear into the night.
The clever girls have all departed. They huddle on the far side of the street, and I weep openly bathed in the floodlight of the streetlamp that hangs over me. The makeup which you made me don washes away into the gutter with my tears. I am left blinded by the prickle of the barb you have left in my side, attached to it all the blame you still dislodge onto me for the puzzle your own character has become for you. A character I thought I saw once, but now, I grow uncertain because you have grown uncertain.
Please, tell me only this, was it all an illusionist act? A surreal dream you manufactured while I sailed on blissfully unaware all the time of the opposing reality that was about to rain down on me like stinging cat 'o nine tails? Was it really true what you said to me, not so long ago, that you were honest to yourself with me in ways that you had not allowed anyone to see before that? Answer me at least this question when you finally find the words to give it proper reflection: What is it about me that causes you to be so befuddled now about your very self when previously you told me you felt more alive and authentic than you ever had, just by being at my side?
You tell me this is too confusing for you, and that is why you can't be near me. This is the reason you can't speak to me, can't even cast your eyes to my face. You tell me that you don't know who you are when tethered within the confines of my love. But I am the one that is left now with a lingering sense of confusion. What is it about me that causes you to be remiss now about your very identity when previously you told me you felt more alive and yourself than you ever had, just even in my presence? How could I, who at least, have always tried...and maybe I have failed along the way...but always steadily tried to help you embrace and know yourself more and more...How could I cause you to doubt your very essence?
The sting of that rejection is steeped in lacing wounds that burn like the acrid taste of aspirin caught in the back of my throat. It is that burning salty drip, sliding down and filling each laceration, making them blossom in thick rising bands. They are new fresh hurts laid over what I thought was truth you were telling me. They will turn into new scars for my aching form. It tingles when I slide my hands over it now, like scar tissue. Was that truth? Or was that you lying to yourself and to me, because you wanted it to be so badly?
Were you the one deceiving yourself all this time? Were you trying to run away from your past and remold yourself into any new form? Did you bounce off of me and find with time, you wished to purge yourself of everything you had become while we loved each other? What now am I left to wonder? Do I trust what I believe is right, that you did share your heart and soul with me, and I know the truest you? How do I look now at your form, changing everyday like a chameleon's skin as you try on new identities that seem completely foreign to me? These colors, although not altogether alien, mix in a dizzying plaid that obscures the soul I thought I touched once. And, your continued silence, your austere unforgiving absence makes me tremble with a growing sense of dread.
Who are you? Who is the real you? Where are you going? What are you running from now? And why, why do you still return each day to read these words? If you have truly cast me away, then there is no reason to linger. There is no reason to wonder what I think or feel, especially in regards to you if you no longer care to have me in your heart, or have me back in your arms ever again. Especially since now, you are free, free to find yourself in the arms of countless others. Free to disown the bond you shared with me once. Free to refute that you ever let me savor all the delicate and bold flavors of your soul's nexus. I suppose that is why you had to embark on this journey in the first place.
But I'll tell you the truth, my love, for you are still my dearest love through all of this: Your projection of your own fears onto me, cuts me straight through the bone as if it was a heated wire through a block of melting ice. Forgive me, but I cannot accept the blame for that which you have tried to lay squarely at my feet; which you have tried to litter like black rose petals across the alter which once bore libations for our love. I take only responsibility for my own faults, for the things I truly have done with mistaken judgment. But you must also accept responsibility for what is yours and yours alone. I have yet to hear you release me from guilt for those sins which I have not committed.
I feel as though I am an actor that has been thrown into an absurd theater of life piece, penned by three hands at once belonging to Samuel Beckett, Eugene Ionesco and Jean Genet. This script is comprised of senseless dialogue and a distorted plot that attempts to convey the miscommunications which have passed between us and the irrationality of our severed everyday lives. In it, I am cast as some Shylock fiend who has stripped your of your singularity. Now we have reached the final battle where you will throw down the gauntlet and reveal me for the scoundrel that I am casting me off, free to be your own once more.
Alas, I cannot be the stand in for this role. I am an ill prepared understudy for this character, as it was never the one I was meant to be cast into. You are giving me frantic cues to play out my part from offstage, but I cannot comprehend them, because I never rehearsed for this part. I am wondering why you have thrust me on stage under the hot stage lights and the audience all around me bathed in darkness. You signal from the wings, but you are wearing the costume and the countenance for this role, and I look so very oddly out of place.
I surrender, listening to the creaking of wooden chairs and guttural throat clearing from the audience. I sigh and walk down center, pooled in a soft yellow spotlight. I raise my head, full front to the audience, I open up. The red satin of my cravat throws its crimson light into my eyes and the stage lights wink mercilessly from the cravat pin nestled betwixt my breasts. Its ring of rough black onyx stones encircle a generous ruby and sends little beams of light into the audience, dancing on the odd nose and eyebrow in the darkness. They are stirring in their seats and growing impatient. I do not mind them. I breath deeply, and projecting my voice, I begin my soliloquy. On the back of my strong but animated voice, my monologue is being carried into the far rafters of the mezzanine. You grow uneasy, winding the cord of the act curtain around your hands, threatening to send it crashing down on me. Threatening to bury me in silence forever.
I see you in my peripheral vision, taunting me by coming closer to stage right as if to explode into the scene, but then growing sick with stage fright and withdrawing. It must be unusual for you, to bear witness to this; the fact that I do not stutter or shake, that I hold firm to my true character through all this. The only change I have gone through now is that I display more and more the honest bearing I had all along laying dormant within me. Now it is you, turn all pale and worrying your bottom lip with sleepy teeth, blanking on your lines because this was not the part I am sure you expected me to play. And why would you, if you had cast me into this role from the very moment you selected your players?
Unbeknownst to me you were rehashing the script on your own time, playing out your monologues with other actors who were never intended for this scene. This once epic romance, this has now become a tragic farce. This has in some part come to pass because you stopped collaborating with me as your co-star. You turned director, playwright, and cast yourself as the unsuspecting heroine in one fatal pen stroke. You withheld your directions from me, you altered the backdrops and scenery, keeping these changes, these growing suspicions to yourself. Let us not be coy, it was not merely one month you had been withholding the new script from me. Tonight, as you attempted to drive me into this role, I saw with clarity as I reviewed the new script you handed me moments before you shooed me on the stage. You had ransacked the narrative, turning it from a sprawling verdant southern plantation garden into a dingy, claustrophobic, yet cumbersome kitchen sink.
You tried to press all its weight into me, so that I would be left bearing its weight alone. And I, foolish player, I took the brunt of it. I still held it, chained around my neck all the while shaking under its oppressive weight. I was wringing my hands in its soiled soapy water trying to clean up the messes that I have in fact made. Instants before you unclasped me and smacked my face with fresh cake powder, I had just made my final headway. The once grimy porcelain shown like snow, the fixtures glittered like freshly polished silver. But it did not matter to you how it had begun to shrink down as it became fresh, now no more than a thimble in size. You gave the warning, then the standby, and then as you gave the go you pushed me onto the stage. Here I stand, feeling the weathered boards of the stage beneath me, playing the part I was born to play: your unwavering lover. The one you swore you bore all to, the one you claimed never to withhold or hide from.
I do not avert my eyes. I stare straight into the darkness that blankets the audience as I slip into the moment, but I begin to see, through the murky black they are leaning in on the edge of their seats. In the climb of the rising act, they are straining to hear my every word as I bear testimony to a love that I will not forsake. No, I cannot forsake you even now, as you my cherished lady justice rip my soul asunder with a blind eye you have raised the blindfold away from. I can see that some of them, some of them swoon all lovestruck, while you remained at least to outward appearances completely unmoved. When I finish my last line, the air is thick with pregnant pause. The moment is suspended and I cast my eyes off stage to you. But you remain stone faced, the picture of unforgiving marble, still breathtaking in that moment as you ever were.
My heart calls out to you as I walk offstage, thunderous applause pushing after me, as I fly to the exit stairs. I do not even shed my costume, I only run bursting through the theater's fire doors and into the vacant alleyway. I spill into the chill air of the night. I crane my neck upwards and view the cruel stars spelling out your shape and mine, still dancing above me through the mist. I weave grief stricken and shocked that you would cast me in this light, bumping into the dirty bricks that squeeze in on me. As I near the end of the alleyway, my eyes blur with tears that feel like astringent to my tender cheeks. I hear voices, the tittering laughter of young girls, and a procession of sighs. I round the corner unawares, but it is too late to duck out of view. A crowd of unsuspecting girls has gathered, roses trembling in their hands, outstretched palms bearing small notebooks and programs. They swarm to my sides and I am surrounded. I grit my teeth and bear them in my best theatrical smile, swallowing my tears and the bile that wants to follow it.
I sign their names with poetically written salutations and compliment them all, a force of habit I have learned in the theater to keep up appearances. All the while, all I think about is you. My heart hammers at my sternum, have you forgotten who I am in the process of forgetting yourself? My hands and my skin shrink from their touches. My eyes do not linger on the flirtatious spark that shines from theirs. I gloss over the subtle double entendres that spill from their lips. And I outright, but debonairly repudiate the forward proclamations of others. Ironic, that what should drive them from me, the naked revelation that I am in love with a woman that will not have me emboldens them even more. I am sick with displeasure at this scene playing out before me, and I turn for a moment to see you exit out the fire door behind me.
You are moving gracefully through the alleyway, your skirts bellowing and being swept back against the brick walls swishing as you surge forward. You are the picture of grace and power. You are but ten feet from me, and I find myself pushing through the crowd's edge to block your path. Just as you come to face me, my knees buckle and I fall to them in the street. I grasp your hands, and they feel at once as hot as coals and as chill as ice. I plead with you silently, my eyes flowing. "Can't you see me?!" I cry out to you, strangled by my sorrow. Your eyes glide downwards, framed by thousands of long feathery lashes. Your gaze is shadowed but reveals all. "No," you whisper, and your fingers slide from mine as you disappear into the night.
The clever girls have all departed. They huddle on the far side of the street, and I weep openly bathed in the floodlight of the streetlamp that hangs over me. The makeup which you made me don washes away into the gutter with my tears. I am left blinded by the prickle of the barb you have left in my side, attached to it all the blame you still dislodge onto me for the puzzle your own character has become for you. A character I thought I saw once, but now, I grow uncertain because you have grown uncertain.
Please, tell me only this, was it all an illusionist act? A surreal dream you manufactured while I sailed on blissfully unaware all the time of the opposing reality that was about to rain down on me like stinging cat 'o nine tails? Was it really true what you said to me, not so long ago, that you were honest to yourself with me in ways that you had not allowed anyone to see before that? Answer me at least this question when you finally find the words to give it proper reflection: What is it about me that causes you to be so befuddled now about your very self when previously you told me you felt more alive and authentic than you ever had, just by being at my side?
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