Swarms

I woke up this morning with words swirling through my mind. Words, thoughts, about my life, my timeline. This post isn't made up of those words, though. More words came along, pressing me with their need to be written. They were nearly scattered when the phone rang, but they were tenacious...and so, I will give them such voice as I can and hope I don't make a complete hash of them.

I am not writing this for you. I am writing it for me. Please understand...and if you cannot understand...if you can see this in one light or another, see it as written from a place of love and compassion, deep and abiding, and not as a judgement or cry for help.
~~~~~
I'm no stranger to fear. I am full to the brim with fears. They swarm at me, a hive of buzzing, stinging little things. Mostly, I ignore them - they are not the sort of fears that nature gives us to aid in survival...look close enough and you will see them dressed in a fool's motley, ridiculous things that are barbed but useless.

So...when I see someone else wrapped in a swarm of their own, I empathize. It's not easy to breath when the little buggers crowd around. It's not easy to see, to find perspective. It's not easy to stand on one's own feet, maintain balance, look to the future. Hell, it's not always possible to look to the future,

I've invited anger into my life.

I'm not afraid of it.

It's not dangerous, this anger. It's not violent. It is words (which can hurt, yes...but only when meant to)(or, if they pain, it is not with intent but more a by-product of the hurt they sprang from) which are not directed anywhere but inward to the source...and outward to such gods as listen.

It's an anger rooted in hurt, in disappointment, in loss. It's fed by the frustration of a soul that has been knocked down every time it stood, so that it is almost afraid to stand again. It's being fed by hope...the hope that this time, when it rises, it won't fall again, which is itself a frightening contemplation.

I'm not afraid of this anger.

I fear its consequences. Not to me. I'm stronger than I appear, stronger than I make myself out to be. But I fear the consequences to the source. Anger of this kind...it so often turns inward and gnaws...

I am not afraid of this anger.

Sometimes, though, I am like a whipped cur when the anger raises its head. I cannot look at the source, cannot meet his eyes. I slink away, try not to be seen, make myself small. He won't hurt me...I truly believe he would smash himself to pieces before he hurt me...but the child I was (not the woman I am) remembers other anger, older anger. She wants to assuage, to smooth the way, to fix it, or if she cannot do these things, she wishes to go unnoticed until it passes.

I can't fix it. And I won't hide from it. The only way to deal with it is face on.

I am not afraid of this anger.

But I am not brave.

I have my swarms, buzzing and humming...and I can't always see or hear what I need to do to help. Not to fix. Can't fix. But to help...

Do you know The Healer's Laws?

No?

I'm not surprised. I may be the one person who has them written down in any coherent fashion...

Perhaps I made them up entirely. It has been known to happen.

The first law - you cannot heal others unless you yourself are whole. That doesn't mean one must be perfect...it's complicated...but if a body, a mind, is so imbalanced that it's lost within itself...well, it's not very useful for helping others, is it?

The second law - you must wait for them to ask. You can't just wander around fixing people without their permission, without their knowledge. They have to know they are hurting, have to want help, have to ask for it. It's part of the process. Until someone asks...their hurt is their own, and what right has anyone to take that away? You can offer...but you can't just thrust your will onto them.

The third law - sometimes, you have to fail.

There are more. I won't bore you with them.

What has this to do with anything?

I am not afraid of this anger.

My instinct is to sooth, to repair. Last night, I had to remind myself of the second law. I had to be firm with myself...until I couldn't bear it any more, went to the source, and damn near begged to be asked.

I'm sorry.

I had no right.

But my little swarms, my little clouds...they clouded my judgement, and I can only hope I did more good than harm in thrusting my hand past them, past the anger, to reach for the soul choking on its own clouds, its own swarms.

Shadows, Light

Early in the morning, the light filters through our curtains into the quiet room. I am awake, pulled from slumber by a presence...something has changed.

I don't usually wake slowly, but go from sleep to aware in a matter of moments.

Eyes open, I see the difference beside me, wrapped in sheets, blanket, comforter, grey morning light...

Someone.

Someone is here. Here with me.

He brought relatively little by way of the material world...but he fills this house with himself.

The house approves.

The boy approves.

I? Oh, yes...I approve...

I lean up on an elbow and am tempted...sorely tempted...

...to touch...to smooth my fingers lightly over his face, touch his lips, dip them in the hollow of his collar bone where shadows have come to rest with sighs of content. They drift, mingling with the dawn on his smooth, soft skin...

...to run my palm down his arm, feel the play of muscle, strong even at rest...

...to tease the scattering of hairs on his chest, wiry shafts tickling my face when I cuddle close.

Goddess, how I love to touch him...just to feel him there, radiating heat, vitality, Spirit...

And how I love to see him sleeping there, where it feels so right to have him...to see the shadows and shades molding to him, creating landscapes of chiaroscuro on him...to see them shift and change as he moves, opens his eyes, and light of a different sort fills the room.

A Simple Prayer

Dear Goddess...please...don't let the darkness be too much.

Still Here

I'm still here. So are the shadows. They don't go away. Not without serious medicating, not an option for me.

I'm in an odd state.

I worry. There's a great joy happening here, in the cold, dark, isolated place that is my heart. A great good thing. Not my best good thing - that's my son. He knows it, too, because I tell him he's my best good thing. Something...someone...else has taken up residence, taken root, and seems to be flourishing.

But I worry. I can't recall if I've written this before, but...I don't really know how to do happy...how to be happy. It's...alien. I know sorrow. I know hurt. I know depressed. I know rejection.

I don't know what to do with love. Not the love of a child or parent - the love of an equal. The love of someone who has no reason to love, no familial bond, no obligation. Wow. That's...that's huge. And awfully sweet. Sweetness. Awesome...

And I worry, because I don't know how to just be happy. Don't get me wrong - I revel in each moment, wallow in it, soak it in, savor it. But in the background is the voice telling me I'll screw it up, something will go wrong, I'll go wrong...

It worries me. What have I done to deserve this great good thing?

I worry...not that I doubt him in some way, because oddly I don't. I say oddly because I doubt everyone. It's part of the sickness. I doubt my mother, and my dear friends, and everyone...but not him. This is odd. I doubt myself most of all though, and that's what worries me. What if I am not enough or too much?

Mark Twain said everyone is a moon and has a dark side which he never shows anyone. Not entirely true. I show my darkness, here and in my life. I trust a few people enough to let them see.. He sees. So why am I worried? Because it's unrelenting, this darkness, and what if he comes to realize he wants no more of it...and I can't just put it away, you know? Can't just stuff it in a pocket or in the back of the closet and pretend it's not there. Even if I am too much or not enough, I have to be myself, honestly, openly, entirely me.

Which is worrisome. I don't often like me very much...so how can anyone else?? As for love...whew...let's not go there right now...not love for self, anyway. I don't know if I have it in me...

Still...there is this great joy, and I smile so much my face hurts, and even the fear can't make that go away. People notice, and remark, and tease, and it's fine, it's good. The shadows niggle at me, but they're no match for this great good thing...so they're looming in more ordinary ways, more manageable ways, until they can find an opening and tear me down, claw at me, rend...

Meanwhile, I'm still here, still muddling, still rising and falling, riding it out.

Still rambling aimlessly, pointlessly, endlessly...still here...

More or Less

There are times, love
When I feel I am not enough
Or perhaps too much
But never quite right

And

There are times, love
When I feel I am more than
Or perhaps less than
Myself

In equal measure
~~~~~

you bring this out in me
this sense
of being more
of being less

more than I have been in the past
in a better sense
more than the definition I've accepted
for so long
of not enough
you make me more

less than I have been in the past
in a better sense
less than the limitations I've accepted
for so long
on what I could be
you make me less
~~~~~

I can't begin to capture it, love
Lover
Beloved

Can't begin to
say
sing
paint
dance
write
express

How much more there is,
Since you came along,
And how much less

More moon
More sun
More stars
More wonder
More laughter
More fear

Less sorrow
Less hurt
Less darkness
Less silence
Less isolation
Less fear

More or less, love
Lover
Beloved
I am better off

And can only hope

I may repay the favor.

In the Rain

the night was unkind

and dreams

scattered their sharp fragments

to the far corners of my mind

and I woke to grey, chill

wet

and lingering feelings

dream-borne

so

I went out

into the rain

just out

to be in it

for a little while

in the rain

and the silence

that wasn't

silent

in the stillness

that wasn't

still

and oh, the rain fell

soft, soaking drops

like fingers tracing my lines

running along my arms

brushing my face

little tender strokes

light as feathers

kisses falling where they may

they steamed

where they landed

no match

for my internal flame

out in the rain

I felt you

again

for a little while

in the rain

Addict

I'm an addict.

It's true.

I have an addiction.

It started out innocent enough...just a little bit here and there, just for fun now and then.

After a while, though, I wanted more. I started looking for excuses to get it, to get my fix.

Then it wasn't enough to have a little here and there. No, I wanted more, and more often. Every day, in fact.

Pretty soon, it was all I could think of - the next fix. In between times, I was watching the clock, thinking about the next time. It never lasted long enough, and I found myself trying to get it any way I could. I couldn't concentrate on anything but the next hit. Even in the middle of a fix, I would think about how long it would last, and when I could get my next one. When I couldn't get it, I was grumpy, depressed, and unpleasant to be around. I couldn't sleep if I had to go without it.

I had a couple of days where it was 24/7, and it was amazing. Going back to my old use pattern was hard, and it wasn't the same. After a few months, I needed another big score...four days this time, and I had to share, but it was still amazing.

I love my addiction. I have no intention of getting clean from it. From him.

Nope.

He's under my skin, and that's fine with me. Anyway, I'm pretty sure the Betty Ford Center doesn't have anything to cure love. Thank the Gods.

It's a Cold and It's a Broken...

Sometimes, I think I am a curse.

Not cursed. A curse.

No good comes of knowing me. People have perfectly adequate lives until I come along, and then...then things start going wrong.

Sometimes I think I'd be doing the world a favor to hide myself away, keep my poison contained in myself. Every life I touch becomes toxic in some way. I'm helpless to stop it, can't even clean up the mess I can't help but feel I've made.

Sometimes I think I really should just keep myself to myself.

Oddly, I was just speaking to a friend who feels something of the same thing about himself.

Despite how he feels about himself...I feel blessed to know him. In him, I find fortune's gift...in him, I find comfort, and hope. With him I feel loved, cherished, comforted, free, powerful, empowered.

I don't want to be a curse in this man's life.

Just once, dear Goddess...blessed mother...she from whom all life came...just once, could I please, please, be a blessing?



And Sir? If you see this? You didn't cause it. Truly. This? It's my nature.

Sorry

I'm feeling sorry for myself.

I am. I know it's the nature of depression, to feel sorry for myself sometimes. Not all the time, not even most or much of the time...but sometimes. This is one of those times.

I wasn't. Feeling sorry for myself, I mean. I was, in fact, feeling rather good about things earlier today. I tried to help, and I hope succeeded in helping, a friend. I played with my son. Did some laundry and tidied the kitchen a bit. Made lunch.

And then?

I don't know.

Then I started feeling...low. Lonely. Feeling what's always there, just below the surface, waiting until I am unawares to bubble up and remind me that I'm not a happy person, however much I may be smiling lately.

Maybe it started with another blog I read, one that triggered memories of emotional and verbal abuse from my childhood...echoes of a cold, calculating voice telling me I'm not good enough, I'm boring and stupid and fat and weak and no one really wants me, they're just being nice, they're all out to use me and when I'm no longer useful they'll leave me alone again and...shut up, shut up, shut up...

Maybe it started when my son asked if we could order pizza - something he used to have once a week with his father before the divorce, on the one night a week I had a few hours to myself and as part of their special time together - and I had to tell him no, we can't afford it. He was philosophical about it...but it hurt me to tell him no to such a simple request.

Maybe it got worse when I finally admitted I needed a friend to talk to...and then realized there's no one I can (or want to) call. My mother is sick, and I really don't want to bother her. What about this friend? No - out of town for business, doesn't need me bringing her down and anyway, she's probably really busy. How about...? Nope - out of town guests in for the weekend, and two kids...really, she'd take the time but I won't ask. Or there's... No, wait, she hasn't been well, her mother's in and out of the hospital, her roof leaked during the floods last month, and she doesn't need my petty little foolishness added to all that. I could call... No, no I couldn't...because I don't want to trouble someone who's having issues of his own with what amounts to nothing more than memories and mood swings.

I came to the conclusion that I'm the one everyone else knows, KNOWS, they can call. Any time, for any reason, if they need me, they know without question they can call, and I'll answer. And if they need me to, I'll come over and be there for them. I have driven to New York on a moment's notice, because a friend called. I've dropped everything to smuggle a baby chicken into the hospital for a friend (funny story, that, and not at all as weird as it sounds). I've helped bury pets, talked a Vietnam veteran down from nightmares night after night, gotten money to stranded people, driven out to Las Vegas and back to get someone home, cooked and delivered meals to sick or hungry people, given money I couldn't spare to someone who had less, opened my home to someone who would otherwise be homeless, been available to help rescue battered women, ready to drive them to a shelter or a secret house, and always, always, I answer the phone and listen.

But when I think about the people I know and love...I can't think of anyone I want to bother with my irrational tears and feelings of worthlessness. It's not that they say "Don't call" Quite the opposite - they invite me to reach out.

I suck at reaching out. Sometimes, no matter how much I'm hurting, I can't tell anyone...I'm so used to carrying it within me, silent...but if only someone would notice, would ask, would tell me they KNOW something's wrong and then wait...sometimes then, I can find a way...

Sometimes, too, I feel like it's an intrusion on their lives, despite their words. It's so easy to SAY "If you need me, you can call any time." Much harder to understand what that means and maintain the sentiment. People have jobs. They have families and lives and things that have meaning to them...and really, I just don't figure I'm one of them. Well...not like that, anyway...not in a boring, needy, depressed now and always sort of way.

So I'm feeling sorry for myself, and lonely, and alone, and I can't do anything about it because I'm bound up in my own misery and trying very hard not to let it impact my son, and...sigh...

Sigh...

Necessary Roughness

I'm having an unpleasant day. I'd call it bad, but I can't stir myself to be that invested in it.

For some reason I have not yet quantified, I am not sleeping much or well...and for the last few nights, I have quietly wept myself to sleep. It's a nebulous thing, indefinable...a mid-grade unhappiness...combined with an overwhelming lonliness that's kept at bay during busy daylight hours, but late at night feels free to roam the gardens of my mind, planting the seeds of its strangler vine where it will...

Yesterday, my son got into an ant pile. He washed the ants off his feet with the hose and went back to playing, cool. Not cool were the pustulant welts on his feet this morning - The Boy is allergic to the bites, and one of them is swollen and oozing, black around the edges, and generally fairly horrible to look at. It'll heal...but it's nasty and painful and I hate that he has to suffer it.

I have a pulled muscle in my neck/shoulder/back/I may need an anatomy lesson to figure out that part, and it bothered me all night - every time I moved, it woke me, and I don't sleep very well as it is. I couldn't even tip my head back to rinse my hair in the shower yesterday, which made the job awkward. I have a tremendous lot of house cleaning to do, still, and it won't be easy when I keep getting checked up by "Ow, that motion hurts. Ow, reaching up or down like that is unpleasant. Ow, ow, ow..."

My son, for some unexplained reason, got out of his bed in the middle of the night, wandered into the living room, and fell asleep in the massive recliner that I loathe but sit in because I don't have a choice right now...and he wet himself during the night. I've cleaned it up as best I can, and I didn't yell at the little guy - how can I be mad at him when he tries so hard? I'm more concerned with what has him wandering about in the middle of the night.

One of the cats knocked over a 9/10 full large Coke from Burger King last night (yo, FTC, this is not an endorsement, it's a reference - I just want the reader to understand the size of the thing), splattering it all over the floor. I had a large, sticky mess to clean up when I got up this morning.

I'm not feeling mentally well. Lack of sleep, worry, stress, loneliness, plaguing dreams, the constant drag of cleaning a house that is too cluttered, needs painting and drywall patched and floors thoroughly swept and mopped and toys tidied away and furniture removed or moved and, and, and...it's wearing on me. Coupled with that is the constant fear that things will go wrong (don't ask me what things, I don't know what things...if I knew what things I could do something about the things, but I don't know what things so I'm lingering in thing purgatory).

I'd like to take The Boy to a movie, get out of the house, go do something fun...but I can't. I can't pay the phone bill right now (and if that gets turned off, so does the modem, which means good-bye Internet until I can pay to have it turned back on), let alone help support the Hollywood Entertainment Complex.

I'm feeling sorry for myself, and I don't like it. The depression is pecking away at me...

And...like the sun shining through the grey and gloom...

He calls.

For no other reason than He feels like it. Right in that moment when I was typing about depression pecking...the phone rang and it was Him, and I could hear the smile in His voice when I answered, surprised - it's not His lunch time, and He doesn't usually call me during the day, anyway...except when he does it just to surprise me and make me smile. Just when I was thinking I could really use hearing His voice...

I didn't tell him I'm feeling rough today...if we only have a few moments to talk, I want to hear Him, hear His voice and His happiness and His plans...and my mental state bores me, and I can't imagine why anyone else would want to know about it, too.

So I had that minute or two...and believe it or not, that will help get me through the rest of what is looking like a very long, distressing day full of little trials, necessary roughness that every life contains but that makes the sweetness all the...sweeter.

Last night I woke from a dream
More real
Than the night-dark room around me
Lingering warmth
Reminded me
Where your hand rested
Phantom hand
And where you'd kissed
Phantom lips
And my own lips burned
With the memory of having tasted you
Of wanting more

Was it real?
Did we ever really touch?
Or did I dream it?

I woke to an emptiness
Not strictly physical
Returned to slumber
Where I could lose myself
In a dream more real
Than the night-dark room around me.

Stupid Misfiring Neurons

Have you ever wanted something? Wanted it more than you've ever wanted anything else? Ached to have it? Just about needed it to live? Yeah, me too.

Have you ever been so close to having what you wanted that you could taste it? Or brush it with your fingertips? But every time you get close...it's just a little out of reach? Yeah, me too.

Have you ever had a dream that seemed so real, it lingered after you woke, almost memory? Yeah, me too.

I love a man. He's a good man, easy to love. He loves me back. I am not a good woman, not easy to love...but he's managing it. Bless him. Sometimes I have to stop, close my eyes, and breathe, I'm so overwhelmed by the feelings he engenders in me. Sometimes I think of him and smile and feel like I'm floating...and then I look around to speak to him and he's not right there next to me and I crash back down.

Last night, I had a bad dream. He doesn't need to know about it. He has enough troubles of his own right now, he doesn't need my stupid misfiring neurons to burden him too. That's why I have this place, right? Sigh. He can't read it right now, anyway...one of his troubles, no Internet access. I am hoping he'll right that, for his sake and for the sakes of the other people who give a damn about him (I'm not the only one who loves him, whom he loves - he has a generous heart), but it'll be a while before he can.

So. Bad dream.

I dreamed he went away. Just up and left, off into the wilds of...I don't know where. He took his computer and his phone with him, but he didn't answer e-mails or calls. He just...forgot me. I didn't matter any more. In the dream it seemed I never mattered in the first place, and he was just tired of me so he decided not to bother any more. I was lost, confused, and deeply hurt...and I couldn't breathe, couldn't think...I was blinded by a sort of desperation to find him, to know he was alright, because within the dream itself, at first I didn't know he didn't want me any more, that I was annoying him with my persistence; all I knew was that he'd disappeared and I was frantic to find him and couldn't.

After searching for a little while I realized he just didn't want me, and my heart shattered. I woke up.

That dream has lingered. All morning, it has haunted me, teasing the edges of my mind. I know it's just a dream. My admittedly limited rational self knows it was a dream. But my emotional self? Yeah...that part of me is convinced it was real and he's going to stop calling and stop answering and leave me empty and alone...

Sigh.

You'd never know that a few months ago, before I met him, I had made up my mind I would just be alone for the rest of my life and be OK with that - that I figured I'd be better off...everyone would be better off...

Stupid misfiring neurons...why can't I dream the winning lottery numbers??

Just Click Your Heels

It's all fun and games until it isn't.

I was playing a game, passing some time, trying to convince myself that I didn't really need to eat one of the brownies I just baked - don't ask me why I'd bake brownies and not eat them, I'm a girl and we're not logical.

Anyway, I was done with one section of the game and clicked a button to return to another section, and the game asked "Do you want to go home?"

Oh...oh, yes please.

Home isn't a place, really. Or...it is a place, but outside of the space we perceive as space. It's a place within ourselves, I think. A sense of belonging. A sense of being in the right place...the right place in space, and time and our lives, of life, in general, being right as it is in the moment, through a succession of moments...a sense of completion...

You know what? It's damnably difficult to nail down.

But I know I'm not there...yet.

Yet.

I will be. Home. I will be home.

Poor Eponine...

...sometimes, I know just how she feels.

Worth

When you cry, do your tears make your face itch? Or is that just one more way I'm weird?

I have cried a lot in the last few days.

I'm tired. I'm lonely. I am hurting. I am scared.

My head won't leave me alone.

Now it's telling me that dreams are futile...that no matter how much I hope, no matter how much I want to believe that maybe I have value...it's an illusion, a delusion.

My head is telling me I'm worthless, and the sooner I accept that, the better.

It doesn't help that I can't seem to make anything of myself...can't sell my art, or my words, can't even really sell my music...can't hold a job like productive people do...can't do anything but take up space.

I remind myself that I cannot expect anyone to value me when I don't value myself...

Yeah, I'll let you know how that works out.

Have you ever felt weak? Physically, emotionally?

I feel weak. I want to curl up on my bed, under the covers, and cry. I've been working all day, and since mid-morning I've wanted to leave my work undone and hide in my room.

I feel shaky and unwell.

I feel very alone, and empty.

I wish I had someone to put an arm around me, pull me close, and comfort me. A shoulder to cry into. I could use a good cry.

I miss something I've never had, and it sucks...and I have this fear that I never WILL have it, and that sucks, too.

Sometimes, I hate my emotional self.

I'm Feeling...

Lonely
Hurt
Angry
Frustrated
Tired
Worn
Frightened
Uncertain
Lost
Alone
Depressed
Adrift
Overwhelmed




Loved

So I Weep

I'm not feeling well.

I'm not sick, really, just not feeling...well.

Actually, that's not true.

I feel like crap.

I would usually rather burn my hair than admit that in public...or private. I usually grin and bear it. But I made this blog so I could bitch, moan, and complain at will.

I stopped taking my medication last October because we ran out of money...and then my husband lost his job and we had no insurance AND no money. They're not psych meds, so hush. They're for...never mind. If you know me, you know why I take them, and if you don't know...you may ask or wonder.

Anyway. Last week, my mother offered to fund a return to my MD and medication. Bless her.

Trouble is, restarting the meds means I get to feel like three kinds of Hell for a while, until I get used to them again. Yay.

I've had a headache since yesterday, bad enough it's made me cry a few times. I've been the only parent home with the boy all weekend. He is unrelenting in his boyishness, his energy, and I have tried very hard not to shed tears in his presence or to yell at him for being himself. I have succeeded, at the cost of a little more of my sanity. Sigh.

I'm exhausted, despite a decent night's sleep - and all I really wanted to do tonight was talk to Someone for a little while, crawl into my bed alone, and die until tomorrow, when I have to peel myself up and go get blood drawn for labs.

Sigh.

Denied.

The chat service we use to connect online is being mean to me, constantly dropping me out of chat. Someone keeps disappearing, and I don't know if it's the chat or because he's also busy tinkering with a new gadget, or may have fallen asleep - it's getting late, he works long hours and has to be up early in the morning. I could call...but his phone is off because it was misbehaving, and anyway I don't like to call after a certain time in case he's sleeping.

Sigh, again.

And my head still hurts.

I'm frustrated, and lonely, and could really use hearing Someone's voice, and I'm whining and ill...and so...I weep.

I am going to go bury my head in my pillow and hope the phone rings soon...

Staccato Dreaming

Went to sleep: 3 AM

Woke up: 4 AM, 6 AM, 7 AM, 8:30 AM, 9 AM

Got up: 10 AM

Figure half an hour to get back to sleep every time I woke up, sometimes a little more.

In those brief moments of dipping into Morpheus' realm, he and I danced frantic steps, a tarantella of images, sounds, impressions, whirling past my mind's eye, dizzying.

Morpheus, by the way, tends to step on your toes when he's dancing with you. But he has a nice smile and laughs freely, and he's always sorry after, if he bruised your piggies.

I dreamed of fire. Of looking at a map on the computer, some sort of satellite image, and seeing fires raging from Texas up to Canada and East to Alabama. Walls, curtains of flames flickering, eerily still and silent, not marching onward but just...there. They could not be extinguished, and I remember remarking that someone set the Salamander loose.


I dreamed of wind, sweeping across the continents, a wall of air scrubbing the land clean. Trees bowed, bent, or broke. Houses lost roofs, people were flung about like rag dolls. It was relentless, a sound that accompanied day, night, thought, constant, notable only in its rare absence. The Sylphs were on the march.

I dreamed of a flood, flowing forth from a bathroom sink, filing the house I was in, flowing outward into the neighborhood that looked alien in the dream but was, I knew, a place I'd lived before. The water filled every hollow, every declivity, rolled and rippled onward until it built itself into a tremendous wave...the Undine making her presence felt.

I dreamed of trembling earth, of mountains tumbling down, landing in scattered piles of stone, dirt, debris. Trees toppled, and houses and buildings, and no one could take a steady step - walking required loose hips, loose backs, or the ability to float above it all. The surface cracked, and out poured gas, fire, heat, and a sort of howling, creaking, shrieking noise, as if the planet was being rent to her core...and the Gnomes were tunneling, tunneling, tunneling...

I dreamed of a space shuttle going up, up, up... I was there, outside the shuttle, perhaps a cloud or the wind itself, watching the fragile roaring tube force itself through the air and into the cold dark. At the same time, I was a person on the ground, in a tall building. I was trying to find all my possessions in a room and pack them up, carry them downstairs. As I worked, I was reassuring someone else in the room that the shuttle was fine, that now was ignition, and now it was climbing, and now the main fuel tanks were done and shed, step by step telling the other person what was happening and that everything was fine.

I was carrying boxes down the stairs, wondering when I got all this stuff in my short stay, and a little grumbly because someone was supposed to be helping me but he (don't ask me who - in this dream, everyone was "someone", indistinct, amorphous) was too busy doing...I don't know what, but it wasn't helping. I had to be certain I got everything out. I don't know why, only that it was urgent.

All of these things I dreamed in minutes, snatches, fragments, staccato dreaming coming in fits and starts as I tried (without trying, because making an actual effort to sleep rather defeats the purpose) to sleep.

I wonder what I will dream tonight??

The Empty Room

Gods cursed little voice, nattering away at me - if I didn't know better, I would claw at my own head to dig it out, make it stop. I can understand trephaning, really - perhaps those ancients who practiced it had evil little voices, too, hurling nasty, hurtful things at them from within their own skulls until they couldn't bear it any more and had to relieve the pressure any way they could.
~~~~~

Hello?

Hello??

Nothing...an echo in the dark.

Hello?

Echoes.

I'm in an empty room, and I'm echoing.

There was someone here not long ago, and the room was full to overflowing.

Now? Now, it's empty.

There was a need greater than mine, and the presence left to answer it.

There is always a need greater than mine. Always has been. Always will be. I've gotten rather used to it, had many years to grow used to it, to that other need that is louder, more insistent, pulls stronger. Story of my life. Sigh.

Hello?

Nope. Still alone in here.

Rather used to sitting in the dark, listening to the rustling remnants of conversation, of motion and light, things that shattered, scattered, fell to dust when the room emptied of everyone but me.

I can't leave.

And anyway, where would I go?

Hello?

Nothing...

Just an empty room.

I Endure

It seems I am prolific, of late.

Especially in the later hours (although THIS hour is not so very late compared to some I have kept), I seem to write for this place. Especially of late, when I am happier, lighter of spirit, than is my wont.

Why is that?

I am in love with Someone, who loves me back. Sweetness, that. This loving has wrapped itself around me, infused me with a sort of happiness I have never known. When I think about Someone (a few hundred times a minute), I smile...and everyone who knows me, who has known me, remarks on how I've changed, how I shine. The dark one shines. Armageddon can't be far behind.

When a friend asked me today, if my feet were touching the ground yet, I laughed...and winced. I told her I was still very much in love (I am...oh yes, I am)...but I don't know how to maintain happy. I've had 31 years of misery...I know how to live in, around, and with that. Happy? Not so much. I don't know how to simply be happy - my mind will constantly manufacture fears, doubts, questions. It wears me down.

Despite that, I endure.

For once, I am choosing to trust in the feeling, to ignore the angry, hurt, spiteful voices in my head. It's a struggle, though, especially late at night when I'm alone. Late at night, when the house is quiet, the boy is sleeping, the phone is charging in it's cradle, and there's no one but a feline or three to talk to...then I begin to wonder...do I really know how to love someone? Do I have a right to try? To ask a person to love such a deeply flawed person...can I do that? I don't know that I am worth it.

It hurts, to doubt...but I endure.

I wondered, one night, if I should stop answering the phone...stop answering the e-mails...fade away. I wondered if Someone would be better off without me distracting him...tugging at him...dividing his attention between me and his life, the life he's living so far away. I don't doubt he'd be hurt, maybe angry...but it would fade with time. I'm not saying I want that...far from it...but if my presence in his world causes uncertainty or difficulty, shouldn't I withdraw? Before we met, he had dreams, plans...what right have I to hope I may become part of that? What right have I to imagine he may change them even a little to include me? I should bow out now, I thought, before this goes too far and one day he realizes he made a mistake. Just the thought hurt enough to bring tears to my eyes - I would be miserable.

I would endure, though.

I wondered if this will last...this feeling, this loving, will it last? What if it's fading and he doesn't want to tell me? What if he's realized what it means, to be woven into this chaotic pattern that is the tapestry of my life? What if he comes to regret...?

Almost beyond bearing...but I'd endure.

That's what I do, I endure. I slog on through the muck and mire, because there's nothing else to be done.

Trouble is - this love thing? There's no muck. No mire. It's beautiful. It's astonishing. It's overwhelming. And it's not something to be endured - it should be celebrated, reveled in.

It hurts, I won't lie - he IS far away, far enough that actually being in the same space at the same time is impossible on any sort of regular basis. He has a job, a life...and, while I am not employed in any traditional sense, I DO have a life, a son that I have to consider. I can't go haring off to...Somewhere...just because I feel as if half my spirit is there. It's frustrating.

But I endure...I tell the doubts, the questions, the fears and frustrations to go away...or natter on, but I won't alter my course. He mentioned how long it would be before we could meet again...and I sighed and admitted I hated to wait so long but if it must be borne...I will endure. At least I have the hope that, at the end of THIS endurance...there is something worth the ache, the pangs, the enduring...

Boundaries

Earlier this evening, when I was hanging about with a friend and our children were tumbling about her house like two Tasmanian Devils on a serious sugar high, I chanced to mention respecting boundaries, respecting the needs of others, sometimes ahead of my own. We had a rather lengthy discourse about this, which led me to some thoughts. I'm sharing them here, because the thought chain started out fine but didn't end well.

Warning - it's long and it rambles.

Let's talk boundaries, shall we?

I know when my friend M is at work, and when she's home, and what time she tries to take a nap because raising two kids is not so easy, even when your husband is freakin' amazing. So...I don't call her until I am fairly sure she's awake and can talk. Sometimes it's hard to wait, especially when I need a friend, but I respect her need for rest, for family time. It's not a huge boundary, but it's there.

I don't give out people's phone numbers or e-mail addresses without their express permission. That's a huge boundary, to me, and one I respect mightily.

I know that my mother doesn't like it when someone messes with the temperature or radio settings in her vehicle, and I don't do it unless I have permission - won't even ask unless I'm desperate. Her vehicle, her boundaries.

My friends know that there is no time I won't answer the phone if they call - any time, day or night, if they need me, I am here for them. If I don't answer right away, it's because I didn't hear the phone ring and I WILL call them back. No boundary, there...cross at will.

I have learned Someone's daily schedule fairly well...enough to know when he's working, when at lunch, when driving home, when napping, when likely writing, gardening, or on the phone with another Friend. I don't call during those times because, however much I may miss him, want to hear his voice, be lonely or hurting...those are boundaries I won't cross. I wait my turn, and that's fine. There's a pattern to his day and he works me into it when he can.

I don't like people touching my computer. On rare occasions, I will permit its use...to special people...but it's unusual. That's one of my boundaries. I can't begin to tell you how it irritates me to find someone has been using my machine without permission, especially when I can see they've been digging through my files. Yes, they're public, no I don't password them - it's my machine, I shouldn't have to do that, and if someone is uncouth enough to root through my files and they find something they don't like, well...too damn bad for them. They chose to cross that line.

Another is that it's not OK to give out my contact information, real name, or any other identifying information to anyone else. Not even my own mother. If I want someone to be able to find me, I will give them that info. If you have it and they want it...YOU contact me and ask me to tell them. I don't like strangers calling, writing, e-mailing me...unless I gave them permission. I am mildly paranoid...work with me here.

This blog is a place for me to dump my heart and mind, to empty them of darkness and evil, to put the things I can't or won't internalize, remain silent about. It's a nasty little sanctuary for my darkest thoughts. For the most part, the people who read this were invited here. I didn't think I'd need to password protect it - it's not linked to my mundane life or other blog in any way, there's nothing to connect it with the rest of my life. I have generally asked, when I've told people about this place, that they not pass it on to anyone. I've made exceptions, when merited. I've requested that it not be linked to me in any way. I have mentioned that there are certain people I don't want reading it unless they happen upon it entirely by accident - mostly because I just don't think they ever will, and if they do? They likely won't recognize my writing here, or themselves should I mention them.

I don't write about physical characteristics or identify people by more than an initial...sometimes not even that (in the case of Someone, whose privacy I certainly won't fracture).

I try to be as untraceable as something slightly more than ordinary care can make me.

I try to write more about my own internal process and less about others. Sometimes I need to vent about how another's actions (or lack thereof) have angered or hurt me, and I will. It's a way to process without hurting anyone else.

Someone (not THE Someone...just someone) didn't respect the boundaries. Some person thought it would be a good idea to post a link and some text from this blog on another blog. It was hurtful and mean...nay...cruel...to do so. I wondered if one of my friends would have done it. Perhaps they meant well. Then I realized...no...I hold my friends in higher esteem than to believe they would anonymously do something that harmful. They would write their own words, sign their own names, would not hide behind MY words or do something to threaten MY well being or the other blogger's. They would respect the boundaries, defined and implied.

Because of that kind soul, I now must make a choice. Their action happened weeks ago, but I'm only getting around to considering my options. I could drop this blog, kill it and create a new one (or not)., but I LIKE this blog, its content, its design, its general spirit. Another blog won't have those things - it will be its own entity.

I could password protect it, make it invitation only. I don't know how useful that would be, and despite my attempts at a modicum of privacy, I don't like the idea of being exclusive. Also, I did want to show people - invited or random searchers - that horrible thoughts don't make a horrible person, and it's OK to make a place to put those thoughts so they don't fester. I wanted a place to be honest, especially when that honesty is dark, depressing, angry...any of the negative emotions.

I could filter what I write, cater to the people I know are reading, start writing fluff and be dishonest...but why bother??

I could just soldier on, trusting that the person to whom I was linked will keep his word and not read here any more...although he HAS, since saying he wouldn't...and that makes it awkward, knowing that he's still exposing himself to the things I don't want him to have to see.

Still...I prefer to keep up with this blog, keep my dumping ground as it is.

I don't know who crossed the line, or why. I'm not angry with them...with you...for doing it. I'm hurt that you would be so careless of me, of the other party, of common courtesy. I wonder why you didn't first ask if I would mind, or if you acted knowing I wouldn't like it. Perhaps you thought I needed help, that you were doing me a favor.

Whatever the reason...I'm asking nicely...don't do it again. I haven't traced your IP (easily done) or made anything more than a minor effort to suss you out. I am choosing to believe that your action was on of misguided good intentions...that perhaps you acted out of love or concern for my well being. Please don't cross that line again.

Respect the boundaries, people - I don't think it's too much to ask...

I Don't Go

This was rattling around my head, wouldn't let me sleep. I figured I'd plant it in the Lament and let it grow here instead of in my cerebellum.
~~~~~

I don't go where I'm not wanted.
Once upon a time, maybe
Maybe I would
Sneak in
Past the guardians at the gate
Sit in a quiet corner
Wait
Hope
Maybe this time
They'll want...
Me

I don't go where I'm not wanted
Not any more
Not today
It just isn't worth it
Was never worth it
To sit in a quiet corner
Wait
Hope
Maybe this time
They'll want...
Me

I don't go where I'm not wanted
Not even when
I'd very much like to
Not even when
I think it would be good
To sit in a quiet corner
Wait
Hope
Maybe this time
They'll want...
Me

I don't go where I'm not wanted
Sometimes...I don't go anywhere at all.

Mixed Messages

"I love you... just wanted you to know...I'll always love you...I said I was going to tell you that so you wouldn't forget... to remind you...until you tell me to stop..."

Ten minutes later, he's out the door, heading for his girlfriend's place. Oh, wait...she's not a girlfriend, just a girl who's a friend...whose bed he sleeps in...but they're not having sex...even though he asked me to buy him some condoms...

Umm...

THAT'S not a mixed message, is it?

For the record...I don't mind that he has a girlfriend. When we were still married, I TOLD him to find a girlfriend, that it was fine with me - he could even bring her home if she would do chores. I wouldn't have minded if he had sex with another woman, or man, as long as he was honest and up front about it.

I DO mind that he made me feel like shit for asking if he could watch the boy Wednesday night because he mumbled something about having plans...after he had clearly told me a few minutes before that he would be home all week.

Again...not like that's a mixed message or anything.

I mind that he said he would watch the boy tomorrow so I could run some errands for someone else, a few hours out of the day, that's all, of being a parent...and now he says I should call him when I'm headed out (ostensibly with Bird in tow) if I haven't heard from him before then.

Not mixed, at all.

Is it too much to ask that someone honor their word? If you tell me you'll be here...then bloody be here! If you say you're going to call...then bloody call!! Don't leave me hanging here, dangling in the wind, wondering what the Hell happened...

I know I'm no lady...but still...you should never keep a lady waiting...even if she DOES mean less to you than the computer, the TV, or whatever has you so frikkin' distracted you don't hear your own words, let alone her...and of you're going to be that way, can you really wonder if she thinks maybe you don't love her, after all?? Not like she's getting mixed messages...

Solas

I've been listening to this band's album The Edge of Silence for a few years, now...and I love their sound. I thought this song appropriate, considering my rather less than chipper mood, of late. I like to turn it up, sing along, and (as long as no one's watching) dance to it. Yeah, we all know I'm an odd one. Cheers, y'all!

Not Asleep

Sigh.

I thought if I wrote about the eclipse and some of my thinking afterwards, I could maybe go to bed, get some sleep.

Want to make the gods laugh? Tell them your plans.

No sleep. Not yet.

A hot shower didn't help. That voice was nagging me. About saying "fuck", and being lonely, and how it's my own damn fault.

Hey, voice? Guess what? It isn't. Not entirely.

You see, I would have been lonely anyway. I was lonely when I still thought my husband and me had a chance. I was lonely because he was more interested in the computer than his wife. More interested in the television. More interested in the stereo, the iPod, the cell phone, the video games, the latest gadget or gizmo.

I was lonely back when I went to bed alone more nights than not (despite my best efforts), and cried myself to sleep I hurt so much inside. I was lonely when I had to squeeze a pillow tight because it and the cats were the only sympathetic things in the room. I was lonely when I would have given anything for my husband to touch me, just touch me, instead of sitting at the computer surfing the net for one more political post, one more opinion, one more...I don't know what...

I was lonely when I would (rarely) get sick, and hope for some sympathy but instead received a litany of why he was sicker, why he hurt more...and never, not once, did he just hold me, offer comfort.

At least this sense of loneliness and loss has more to do with distance and the foreignness of loving someone and feeling loved in return than with being in a house with someone who says they love you but doesn't notice your sorrow and pain...doesn't or won't.

Yeah, I'm lonely tonight...the kind of lonely that cuts deep and bleeds freely...but it's a bearable loneliness. It's one that can be remedied, that can be soothed by hope. And I would have been as alone with T in the house as ever I am when he's gone.

So shut up, stupid voice. Quit keeping me awake with doubt, hurt, fear, and recrimination - I know I'm doing the right thing.

Know how I know? Because I made this choice before I was graced with loving Someone. I was determined to end this marriage before I ever hoped and then knew Someone had feelings for me. I believed that I would end up alone with my son, walking my path on my own for the rest of my days, and I made my peace with that. No one wanted me before...I know how to live with that. I could live with it again...and even better than before, because now I know what folly it is to try and pretend that believing someone wants me is enough...and I won't be that cruel ever again. If I'd known then I was being cruel...well...things would have taken a different course. I'm not evil, stupid voice.

Sad, yes. Pathetic, probably. Miserable, often. Evil, never.

So yes, stupid voice, I am lonely and frightened by the prospect of being alone - but it won't make a difference.

Lonely can be gotten through, stupid voice, despite what you want me to believe. So piss off and let me sleep...please...

Eclipsed

Yes, part of this is posted elsewhere...but it took a turn, one that didn't belong in that other place. It belongs here, with the other dark things.
~~~~~
I was outside just now, enjoying the coolth (yes, that is too a word) and the waves of night song washing over me.

Somewhere in the world, people were watching as shadows played Hob with their day. Earth, Moon, and Sun bowed to their partners, bowed to their corners, began the dance of the Eclipse. Here, it was, it is, dark. Night is well fallen, well beyond evening and into darker time. Somewhere, though, it is day, if obscured.

I made a wish. Why not? New moon, eclipse, why not?

I wish that every man, woman, and child who lives in fear of another blow, in fear of abuse, neglect, or abandonment, knows peace.

I wish that every man, woman, and child who lives with hunger, homelessness, uncertainty, want, or need, knows peace.

I wish that every man, woman, and child who is waiting for the next gun, the next bomb, the next invasion or act of violence, knows peace.

Peace. I wish for peace.

It's my wish...I'll spend it how I like. Wishes aren't supposed to be realistic - they are supposed to reach beyond the bounds of reality and into that place called Hope, that soft place in the human Heart, the human Soul, where the last of Pandora's gifts shelters, waiting for us to notice her.

I wished, and I talked to a friend and watched the clouds disintegrating, dissolving into inky night and shining stars, one of them (the clouds, I mean) looking for all the world like a great, beautiful swan drifting serenely across the firmament, neck arched, staring down at my insignificance as it moved on...moved on...until there were stars and stars and stars above me and I could have fallen upward to swim among them, myself.

I thought about wishing for something I dearly wanted...something for myself...but...I didn't. Couldn't. Can't bear to think the wish will be denied. Can't bear to think that wishing for what I want...might mean someone else loses their dream, their hope, changes the course they want their life to take to satisfy my selfishness. Better not to wish at all than to cause harm to another...any other. I won't. I can do without...I've proven that. It's doing with that's the unknown, the mystery, the fearful thing. But fuck, I'm lonely. I feel like a cup that was, for the briefest time, filled...and now knows exactly how empty it can be.

The call ended too soon...but then, forever isn't long enough to hear that dear voice. I stayed for a few minutes with the night wrapped around me, a security blanket for the soul. I thought about the ground on which I am figuratively walking, how uncertain it is...how uncertain the future seems, just now. Like walking through a swamp, never knowing which step will fall on solid ground, which will land me up to my ass in muck. I felt lost, and awfully alone.

I wept, a little...gave in to what's been there for weeks, that lonely longing, the hurt that seems ever present, despite the love and kindness of others, of Someone...

I think I need a better cry, a real one, a snot-faced, body-shaking, gut-wrenching release, before the sun can shine fully on my spirit again. I need to give the shadows their due before they will move on. Only I can't seem to let go enough...and so I'm eclipsed by my own need, want, hope, fear, great shining shades mantling about me...obscuring the light I so crave...

Thought Prism

The day started with promise - the boy slept late, and so I slept late, a boon to a mother who was awake through the wee hours. We snuggled for brief while, his sweet head resting on my shoulder, his eyes inches from mine.

Once up, I made the bed - it's nice, having a made bed, and I didn't know I'd missed it until I started the habit again. I started some laundry, emptied the dishwasher and loaded it again, did a little cooking, went on with my day.

A good start.

The last few hours, though...I don't know.

I feel...distracted. Tugged this way and that. Fractured. I can't focus.

I tried writing a bit. No dice - the pieces of fiction I've been juggling for a long while now are slippery, words falling from my grasp and shattering on the keyboard. The non-fiction is just as elusive, nothing coming out right, all tangled up and out of order.

I have been pacing up and down the hall, up and down the stairs, into my room and out again. Folding and stowing laundry was automatic, a minor distraction from my distraction. I called a friend - no answer, no distraction there. Called another...ditto. Wrote some blog posts. Deleted them. Wrote some poetry. Deleted it.

As an aside - you know I think it's truly awful when I delete it, as I tend to save even the failures as object lessons.

I keep looking at blogs I've already read, hoping for something new to look at, something new to hold my attention, help pass the time. It's the weekend...slim pickin's in Blogopolis.

I am restless, but don't want to go anywhere. I start household chores and leave them half done as I gaze out the window at...nothing.

I am impatient. I snapped at the boy for acting like a boy. I apologized...then snapped again a few minutes later.

I dozed a little in the chair, only to start awake after a few moments. I thought I felt something, soft as a moth's wing, brush my temple, my forehead, my lips. Nothing was there. Just my imagination.

I stared at some dust motes dancing through a beam of sunlight, and rather than enchanted I felt...almost frantic.

I am worried. That's it. Worried. I don't know why, or about what...but it broke open and washed over me a few hours ago and now I can't shake it.

My minutes are hours, fractured by a prism into tiny segments...I am waiting for my scattered thoughts to coalesce...with no idea where it came from, all I can do is ride it out and hope that it's not connected to someone I love, that some unnamed catastrophe had struck family or friends and I know before being told.

I would very much like for it to pass...

The Sweetest Ache

Six days.

Even with doubt coloring a few hours, even with fear and uncertainty making an undercurrent here, there, coloring a few moments before subsiding, it was six incredible days of...what? What did we do, really, that was so remarkable?

Ah.

We met.

We loved.

We gave and received, freely, of ourselves.

That is remarkable. Each moment was an honest moment, without secrets, without lies, without shame.

Even the quiet minutes when I was writing while he spoke on the phone, when he tapped away at the computer while I read or stretched or simply watched him until he turned, saw me, and smiled, even these simple things were rich and deep.

Leaving may have been the most difficult thing I've done in a long while. I missed my son, of course...what mother wouldn't?..and wanted to come home to him, but I missed, too, Someone, even before leaving him behind to journey home.

Someone whose touch quieted the voice in my head, so angry, so derogatory, so bitter. Someone whose laugh lifted...lifts...my heart and sets it soaring. Someone with beautiful, tender, smiling, intense eyes and gentle, loving hands that caress so sweetly they make me shiver.

I have often told my son that there is an invisible line from his heart to mine, one that will never break, one that connects us no matter where we are or what we are doing. I tell him that I am always loving him.

I feel much the same about Someone. Driving away yesterday morning, leaving him behind, was painful. I ached. I felt a soreness in my heart where he is so newly rooted as the connection between us began to stretch.

Mile after mile, I felt it pulling me back, back to where I'd been, even as I was drawn forward, home to my son.

I wondered...if I kept driving, would this new connection accommodate? Or would it, so new and fragile, so tenuous, snap?

It's there, yet. It thrums. I feel him, Someone, there, rooting deeper, establishing himself, creating his space. My home isn't quite home, any more...it's missing something...Someone...

It is the sweetest ache, this absence, this presence, this want, this need...this Love...

Wearying Dreams

Two wakings, this morning, both hard to bear - not for the waking, but for what came before...the dreaming.


The first, early, when I would have happily slept on, wrapped in Someone's arms, warm...feeling as though I fit there. Sweetness...but troubled, nonetheless, by dreams.


Dreams in which I sought...something. Wandered lost, alone, bereft, aching from the internal cold that poured from me in waves of frost and fog. I was looking for warmth, I think, though it be from a candle's flame, but all was gray, bleak...empty...and that light, that heat, was always just out of reach, hinted at on the horizon but never close enough to see, to touch, to believe real.


At some point The world changed, and I was surrounded by whispers that fell onto my skin like an acid mist, droplets burning chill through my skin, down to my core. It won't last. You have gone too far. Unwise. Unwanted. Used up. Tossed away. Fool.


I wanted to drown out the voices...the voice...my voice...but I could not. It echoed even as I woke and watched Someone prepare for his day, for the part he will spend away from me and this little room we've made into the greater part of our world for these few short, precious days we have together. Room. Cave. Den. Haven. At least, for me...insidious voice, telling me it's an interlude for Him...poking at the softest places in my heart, because she knows so well where and how to hurt me, and she is driven to do so whenever she can. She is cruel. I am cruel.


I watched him move about, smiled, drifted, watched more. When he lay beside me again, I touched his face, his hair, his arm, trying to teach his texture to my fingertips...loving, yes...but also, in part, trying to make them remember so when he's gone (the voice says he will be gone, he is ephemeral...insidious voice) I will still have him there...in the nerves and sinew of my own hands, that love touching him so softly, so tenderly. I watched him smile, eyes closed, face relaxed, looked and looked and could not get my fill, could not take him in enough to reach the place the dreams still roiled, burn them away and replace them with...something.


Once he was gone, I slept again, fitful, alone, lonely. I wrapped my arms around the pillow he's only just been using, breathed deep, scented him, dozed a little deeper. This time, I dreamed we made love...sweet...slow...tender...and woke before we finished, before he drew in his breath and stilled, lost in that collection of moments that are climax, face set in a rictus of bliss...


When I woke the second time, not long after I had slept, I again felt the emptiness...and wondered, aloud, what is wrong. Why would it make me sad, to dream such beauty? The voice, ever faithful, answered...because pleasure is fleeting, and you don't deserve a full measure...of yours or anyone else's. Evil voice...telling the truth just often enough to make it impossible to ignore...planting that small seed that grows so quickly into a forest of doubt, fear, loss, where I wander lost, alone, bereft, aching from the internal cold that pours from me in waves of frost and fog, without even the dream of a candle's small, dear flame to warm me...

The Things I Tell Myself

So my husband is spending the night with his girlfriend, and I am alone with our son - not unusual, of late - and I could laugh, a bitter laugh, because he has moved on and now I am here by myself, where I wish to be...or wished to be...

Is it worth it? The loneliness in this moment, so crushing...is it worth the month of happiness? Is it worth the maybe that may never be? The tenuous joy? Is it worth the mere idea that someone could love...me...really? Is the month of believing that I could love and be loved in equal measure...is it worth the sudden knowing that I am not, cannot, will not be?

My mind tells me so. Insidious voices, whispering to me, sibilant, insistent, sweet and seductive, they tell me...that I will not have more than this small measure...the one month of hope...and now it's done.

I know better.

I do.

I know better than to hope. Hope invites the voices in.

I want to talk to him, to this man I love...this man I believe loves...loved...me...

I want to hear his voice and be reassured...but...I am so afraid...to be a bother...to be a burden...an annoyance...to interrupt what must be more important...because it isn't me being needy...

I want to hear him, and feel the stillness that comes when he speaks and I believe and the voices are banished for a while longer...but...

I feel...different...as though something has changed...

And now...now I fear the choice my would-be, want-to-be love will make...I fear he will not choose me, because I am not worth the choosing...not worth him...and he's just looking for the right way to say...to tell me...that another shines brighter, sings sweeter, calls louder...

It's not his fault. The salt I taste now, running down my face...it's my own doing. Cursed brain manufacturing these feelings...but they are just as real as anything else...they always are...and they hurt as deeply as if they were true...and I fear they could be...

The voices tell me I'm not good enough...and I try so hard not to hear them...but they've always been right in the past...haven't they? Didn't they tell me about B? And M? And...others...who I thought could be...hoped would be...but then they turned away...and, just as the voices warned, crowed about, I was alone again...

Oh, this crash was due, I well know...there's always a crash commensurate with the high...no, not commensurate...greater than...ten feet up, fifty feet down...

It is worth it?

It's my own fault. It is. I know better...I do...and these tears? I deserve them, and every one that follows. I've no one to blame but myself.

Or...so I tell myself...

The Angry Response I'll Never Post

Or, at least, not on the original site.

My husband wrote a blog post (he just started blogging, a means to garner my attention and vent his feelings) yesterday that provoke a very negative response in me. Oddly enough, I rarely read his blog, because I am living with the reality of his emotional state and don't need the idealized words he writes.

Anyway.

I wrote a point-by-point response to it and set it aside, thinking I would not place it anywhere he could see it...but I ended up sending it to a friend, needing someone to see and understand that there are two perspectives to this thing.

And the Lament is my place to dump the darkness. So...here it is (items in italics are his words, the rest are mine):

T posted this on his blog...and it's so full of incorrect facts and memories...I don't understand, sometimes, how we were in the same room, having the same conversation...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
What do we do about RA? Who gets the tv? What about the wedding pictures?

We will make certain that our son has his father in his life as much as possible, that he doesn't suffer privations, and that her continues to be the bright, sweet, loving boy he has always been. We have four televisions...take one, any one, I don't care which, they have never been as important to me as they have been to you. The photos can be copied - they're a small detail.

K has moved pass the getting upset about all of this.

No, I haven't...I just contain it better.

She has never shown any weakness during this divorce.

Because I cannot, lest you misconstrue it, try to delay, to mend what is broken beyond my ability to repair.

I didn't know that life could hurt so bad, and it doesn't help that she puts on this I don't care attitude.

You forced this "I don't care" attitude on me, T, when you wouldn't (and still don't) listen, really listen, to what I say.

I don't have anywhere to go, so my mother told me to come down and stay with her. She is 76 years old and isn't able to do much for herself anymore. Last month there would have been no way that K would have let me move back with my mom. She even said that if something happened between us, she would not let me move out until I had a place away from my mom's house. My how things have change.

No, they haven't - I still don't think moving into your mother's house is the answer...but if it's that or you never make an effort to find a place, I will have to let go of my need to see you established in a healthy environment...I have no right to care where you live, anyway...although, I DO care...but you don't want to see that. Again, you need me to be the hard-ass bitch, so I will oblige, though it run counter to my nature and it pains me...

Last night she told me she really needed me out of the house asap. When I told her ok she asked where I was going. I told her that right now my mom's is the only place I have to go. I told her that I am working on another place but it might be 30 days before I could move in. She told me as long as it was not permanent, that I should go live at my mom's. What could have changed her mind about me so quickly.

I said no such thing...not that it matters...because you have always remembered what you wanted to, and not what I clearly said or did. You have twisted my words, my thoughts, my actions this way and that to make them pierce all the deeper, and there's nothing I can do about that. but I won't sit back and let you make your misinterpretations shout forth from a public forum without correcting you.

About 30 days ago everything in the W house was going great.

You keep saying that life was perfect, wonderful, amazing...well, it wasn't. not for everyone in this house. You had a terrific life - a wife, a son, a home, free reign to live as you pleased, to do as you pleased...of course you were happy. I have been miserable for so long, we both stopped noticing...and when I tried, TRIED to engage you, to make you see...you ignored, turned aside, invalidated me, did nothing...

We went to movies together, played with our son, and did all the things a normal family would do. We were even looking at new matching titanium wedding rings. She met met someone at the track who had one and she started looking into styles and prices. She was emailing me web sites and pictures.

This?? Was LAST YEAR!! Not this year. And it's an example of how you are twisting what I have said or done to suit your need for pain.

Well I guess I don't have to worry about the rings I was giving you for our 9 th wedding anniversary.

You mean, if you actually followed through with an idea rather than simply tell me what you would have done, if only?? A gift I wouldn't have to find, show you, and practically order, wrap, and give to myself? How novel...

Anyway, about 30 days ago she started an online friendship with him. She says he is in Houston but his phone # is located in Austin. But that's nether here nor there. In the last 30 days their friendship has turned into a relationship. If that's what it takes to make K happy, then I'm happy for her. All I want is for the love of my life to be happy. So in 30 days I went from someone she loved enough to want to get new wedding rings with to a roommate that he wants out of the house today.

This man? Has nothing to do with this...and I won't have you impugn him. He's innocent in this...and I won't have you attaching blame or responsibility to anyone besides me or you. This marriage failed because of US, and no one else.

Cell phones come from all over. I get calls from someone whose phone is listed in Atlanta, but she lives in Asheville - and that's neither her nor there, either, but since you felt compelled to mention...

So when she got home last night after being gone all weekend with her friend K2. (They were doing some work) I asked her to sit down with me to talk about a few details about the upcoming divorce. We talking about the splitting of the assets and most importantly how we would handle our son's well being. I thought that we had decided that RA would stay with his mom and I would have always be able to see his son whenever I chose. But this time when the subject was brought up she said a friend had told her that the courts would have to decide how RA would be handled. She said she was also told the courts would have to decide how much child support payments would be. Anyway in the middle of this important talk her cell phone rang. It was him. You could tell by the way the tone in her voice changed when she picked up the phone. In that one second we went from a serious talk about our son's future to her talking to him. Seems like the last two weeks anytime her and I need to talk about the future he calls and I am sent to my room. Not once has she told him "Can I call you back. I'm in the middle of something important". He is a big reason for her wanting me out of the house so fast. She told me she would not feel right having him or any other man come to stay with her while I'm still here.

I sat and listened while you said the same things over and over again, and I hope I may be forgiven for my silence when I have nothing more to add. How many times must I answer the same questions, the same implications, the same statements in the same way before I may stop?

It wasn't a friend who told me these things - it was Mum. Being a lawyer, I respect her opinion and knowledge of the law. I also didn't say the courts would decide custody or visitation. I clearly said I would be happy for you to be part of our son's life as much as you chose to be...all I ask is you never promise him you'll be there when you won't. It was child-support - something YOU brought up, by the way - that I said would have to be decided by the court...because that's what I was told...

I took the call to ask him if I could call back later...but before I could say more than "Hello...", you fled the room...and I am tired of chasing...so I took the call. I haven't interrupted every talk with calls - you've often interrupted my conversations with him and others with your need to talk, waiting until I was involved with something else to demand time and attention...and I have tried to give them to you, despite the cost to me.

The conversation we had about not wanting you in the house was weeks ago, and that statement was made in answer to your implication that I had already cut another pony from the herd, well before I was talking to someone who actually LISTENS...

K, I know that he is now a very important part of your but RA and I both still need you in our lives.

And I'm here...as I have been for years...even when YOU WEREN'T...and I'm listening, even when you DON'T, and I will always put our son and his needs first...and I have never broken and will never break my word to him, you or anyone...can you honestly say the same???

You are my Heart, my Soul, my Life, and my Love.But most of all you are my Friend. I Love You.

Somehow, I doubt this...at least...I doubt you mean it when you say the things you do...

Pounce

I fear you will tire of me
or forget
or find some lovelier flower to admire
in your garden

So, eager to keep fresh in your memory
and hoping to continue
to fall beneath your gaze
I pounce

On words hardly left your lips,
I pounce, and
Playful as a kit
clamor to be noticed,
noticing you

I gobble your minutes
crave further sustenance,
refrain, only just
from begging,
pride be damned, begging
for just a little more

I fear you will tire of me,
or forget
or find some lovelier flower to admire
in your garden

And so I pounce,
to remind you
that I am here
empty as a pocket
waiting to be filled

Your Words, Sir

Your words, Sir
Thick and slow
And sweet
Flow through me
Honeyed
Heavy
I am languorous with them
Stretching upward
Reaching outward
Hands dropping gracefully
To my pillow
Tracing a path to the place
On my neck
Where I want your lips
Murmuring
Your words, Sir
Soft, gentle,
Whispers
Shivering through
To my core
Brushing so delicate
Against my heart
Shattering it all the same
Your words, Sir
Flow through me
The pleasant lassitude
Of lava burning
Through the center
All the way through the center
Your words, Sir
Leave me hungry,
Quivering
Wanting
More

Of you

And

Your words, Sir

Over the Pit

Today I told my husband that I could no longer be his wife.

Here we hang, the pair of us, over our own deep pits, wondering what comes next.

I told him I had spent the week thinking about, peeling away, all the doubts, the anger, the blame, the self-recriminations, the despair...all of it...and was left with this: I need to be free to love whom I will...to love freely, joyfully, and fearlessly.

He is leaving, because if I cannot love him, and him alone, then...then nothing.

So here we hang, the pair of us, over our own deep pits, wondering what comes next.

I feel sick.

I Resent Having to Say This

Warning: If you have come to this blog through a link, found it by accident, or were snooping, stop now and consider - this is a repository for every dark, horrible, wistful, depressed, depraved, demented, angry, resentful, sad, and wounded thought in my head. If you can't handle reading it and biting your tongue about the content, that's on you.

You know who you are. Now quit cyber-stalking me and making us both miserable.

Thank you. That is all.

Butterflies

There are butterflies in my stomach. They've been there for days, flying through the anger, the sorrow, the bitterness.

Their wings softly, gently, patiently flutter, dissipating the clouds, making room for...something...something else...perhaps beautiful.

There are butterflies in my chest. They've been there for days, gliding through the cold, unconcerned with anything but their own brilliance.

Their wings softly, gently, patiently flutter, frightening away the loneliness birds that perch on my withered, stone heart.

There are butterflies in my head. They've been there for days, painting the grey into something more to their liking.

Their wings softly, gently, patiently flutter, brushing away the cobwebs, airing out the stillness, opening doors long closed.

The butterflies dance...

Hypothermia

Have you ever been out in the snow?

In a blizzard?

The flakes come at you hard and fast, blinding, and if you don't know where you're going, you can get lost.

Get lost, and you're in trouble - you need shelter, somewhere to keep warm and safe, a haven.

Stay out in it, and you find yourself growing colder, withdrawing inward...until you are overcome by an warm, sweet lassitude, melting into your bones and sapping your strength, your will, until you lie down in the snow and slip away, not even shivering any more.

It's been snowing in my heart, in my mind, for a very long time. Years. I've grown cold, remote, and unable to rise to my own defense, to rouse myself and care, to fight.

I've finally come to a place where I am so chilled, I am warm...and it's a dangerous place. Suddenly, I am floating, drifting through my own life, with no attachment to what is happening around me. I feel limp, weak, lazy, like placing my head on the earth, curling around myself, and drifting off to sleep...

Dangerous. Dangerous place.

And the place I thought was a shelter, a safe haven, a place that was supposed to help me weather these storms?

He's watching TV, oblivious, and I just can't seem to care enough to try and salvage things...

I'd rather just lie here, floating, until I'm gone.

*Edit - after playing around on youTube this evening, I rana cross this, and thought it was apropriate...

Silken Strands, Gentle Hands

So often, I wear it up. My hair. I wear it pulled back or pinned up or braided, hidden away. It's my best feature, the one thing I am proud of, and I hide it away.

I have yearned for gentle hands to pull it loose, carefully, remove the pins and ties and run curious fingers through it, silken strands tumbling down, tangling, clinging.

I have yearned for gentle hands to caress, to stroke, to run underneath, at the nape, where the hair is softest and quiet little shivers wait to run their course.

I touch it myslef, brush it, run my fingers through it, almost but not quite satisfying the want...but it isn't the same...

That Thing You Do

I don't pretend to understand, sir, what it is you do.

I don't mean do as in work, as in polite conversation, what do you do?

I don't mean do as in what you do to thrive, to bring light and lightness of being in to your life.

I don't mean hobbies, pastimes, or how you fix your hair.

I refer to what you do to me.

I mean how you make me want to be...someone...somewhere...else. Better. New.

What is that?

And still I dream of someone who isn't there and wake with an ache that can't filled, calmed, soothed, because you can't caress something with nothing. You can't fill an empty place with dreams, wishes, hope.

Frustrating, sir, frustrating.

Fearful, sir, fearful.

The Angel knows better, she does, than to give way, to stand down, to open, unfold...trust.

The Angel is a fool.

What is that thing you do, sir?

Trembling

I woke trembling this morning, a sort of all-over quake.

It was the dream that did it.

I dreamed I was Kate again, back in her time (whenever it was - I cannot say, there is never a calendar and she doesn't answer when I ask, perhaps because I am a ghost to her, or the faint whisper of a dream she doesn't understand) and in her place (I know this one - Ireland, although not as we know it today).

It was dusk, and she stood with a number of other young women in a circle, surrounded by another circle, men. They were laughing, smiling, the women turning deosil, the men widdershins. In the center, beside the balefire, the High Priest and High Priestess watched, waited, listened to the inner call.

With an unspoken accord, Priest and Priestess made their choices, selected a woman, a man, and led them away into the fields. The two circles slowed, stilled, and each woman faced a man. They joined hands and wandered into the fields, newly furrowed for spring planting.

Odd, how in dreams one may know things the waking mind cannot, will not, does not want to know.

Kate was exuberant, joyful, a sexual woman who was not ashamed of her wantonness, of the pleasure she took from men or the pleasure they took from her. Not taken. Freely given.

I watched, the moon above smiling down on these children of the earth who were performing a ritual as old as agriculture - showing the land how to go, encouraging fertility, feeling their blood run as the sap in the trees, fiery, hot, rushing and roaring to bring forth new life.

I watched, but I also experienced, because I was, after all, once Kate. At least - I think I was. I believe I was. Can't prove it, though. I guess it doesn't matter, because a delusion, to the deluded, is a real as anything.

Dark earth below, loamy, soft, richly perfumed. Moonlit sky above, scattered stars providing soprano counterpoint to the moon's soft alto crooning. Lovers tender, wild, consumed and consuming, caught up in Spring's symphony, chorus of night creatures creating a tapestry of song punctuated by lover's cries. Beautiful.

I woke with the dream's dawn, feeling Kate's release shivering through me, a shadow of her elation still with me, an invisible robe of satiation wrapped around me.

Sometimes I envy Kate - she was so easy in her skin, so content to be who she was, so fearless and unabashed about her sexuality. If she wasn't, isn't, real, I don't care - she's a part of me, a reminder of what I could be, could have, if only I can learn to let go.

Whether from memory or wanting, I cannot say, but some part of me resonates with that dream, the unthinking, the passionate part. All these hours later, I am still shaking, fine tremors in my hand forcing me to retype, correct spelling errors, clean up spilled water, catch dropped things.

I am reminded that I have neglected a part of my life, of my psyche, for too long. I hope it goes away...and I hope it remains.

In It

Up to my ass in alligators, I am.

No, not really.

But it sounds good, sounds busy, sounds so much better than saying I have the blues, or the greens, or the purples, or whatever color says "I am fecking miserable and can't do a damn thing about it but keep breathing in and out and hang on for dear life..."

I wonder if this is what it's like, in the center of a tornado...this eerie calm coupled with the roaring winds and destruction that rends and tears and leaves small things miraculously untouched.

I'm in it, right in the middle, a place I know so well. Breathing in, breathing out, holding on and hoping this isn't the one that carries me away.

Alone in a Dark Room

Someone in my family died on Friday.

We weren't close in any normal sense, but she was family, and an integral part of my childhood. Her children and I share blood, if distantly. She had cancer, fought the good fight, and slipped free of it all only days after deciding to end the medication that hurt more than the disease.

Last night, I went to bed alone and wept. I wept for the woman who died, and for her family, and because I had hoped to see her once more, and maybe also a little because I begged the Goddesses of healing, of life, of compassion to intercede, to make it go away, to let this woman be the one in a million, one in a billion, who lived...and the Goddesses didn't listen, didn't act...

I wept, alone.

Alone in a dark room.

There should have been someone with me...but he wasn't. Even knowing that I mourned, he wasn't there. The race he was watching was more important, it seems. The computer was more interesting, the game more worthy.

How is someone else's death about me?

It isn't, not really...I just felt so empty, alone in a dark room, crying and wishing there was someone there to comfort me.

His sister died of cancer not too long ago, and I drove with him to see her, to be with her, comforted him, stood by him and lent such strength as I had to give...and he left me alone in a dark room last night.

I am not the sort to weep and wail in public, make a spectacle, let slip even one tear where someone else might see and feel obligated to respond...but I would like, just once, to feel that I don't have to be alone in a dark room...that there are two arms to hold me and a voice to reassure me, a presence beyond the Gods who are woefully inadequate when one's body craves physical touch.

How is it about me, her death?

It's not.

I am a selfish ass...and I'm still alone in a dark room.

The Ache

I am not sleeping well. Perhaps it is Summer, heat, humidity, sweat, air heavy with promise and green and wet. Perhaps it is the emptiness I notice so keenly just now. Perhaps it's aliens sucking my brain out my ears when I'm not looking.

I spent today surrounded by several thousand people, and I was alone. I played my part, smiled, chatted, engaged...but I was alone. I made it home from where I was, just...although once or twice I may have drifted close to sleep while I drifted into the next lane a wee. This is so much more than physical exhaustion...

Dear Goddess, I am lonely. Why people seem so alien to me, why I feel as though I am incomplete despite my good life, I cannot say. I suspect you know, Goddess, but you aren't telling.

I am open, though, to what answers may come. Open, and empty, and alone.

Beneath the Bright Moon

The moon is full and I am empty, but not empty. More, I feel empty in a place that was once full, and I am looking for what is lost, or may never have been there in the first place.
~~~~~

Standing by the river, I watch it flow, swift, swollen, dark mysteries silver beneath the bright moon. I am silver beneath the bright moon. Alone and silver.

I wonder where you are, beneath this same bright moon. Are you in the deep wood, dancing with shadows? Or do you glide along pathways of light, beside this same river, across the water where I cannot see?

I miss you, Lord of my Desire, Lord of my Dance, of my Song, of my Inner Fire. From one life to the next have we been together, so where are you in this here and now?

I am waiting here, beneath the bright moon, her cool light against my fevered skin a blessing, a promise, but her whisper soft touch is not what I crave.

I crave you, Lord of my Desire, Lord of my Dance, of my Song, of my Inner Fire. I crave your fingers trailing liquid heat along my flesh, your kisses arousing and chilling me outward from my Center, your warmth along my length as we swim in the river, ardor briefly cooled by the silken caress of the sweet water beneath the bright moon. I crave you sliding along me, slick, wet, fitted to me so perfectly, half made whole beneath the bright moon.

I am lost here, beside the river, lost without you, able only to flounder in the shallows without you, alone and lost beneath the bright moon.

Hurry, Lord of my Desire, Lord of my Dance, of my Song, of my Inner Fire...hurry and find me again.

Love and Melancholia, in parts

"...love lost is the hardest burden to shoulder, and it's one you can never get under..."

Out of context, it doesn't make much sense, but I honestly can't recall the whole of the quote - I wrote it down, along with some thoughts it inspired, but I cannot find where. Still, I recall how I felt the air thicken around me, a syrup of oxygen, carbon dioxide, all the things we breathe, too heavy to draw in, too heavy to expel, stifling, hot, oppressive.

A kick to the gut, a slap to the psyche, a terrible blow to my already shattered heart.

I just don't understand.

I don't mean the quote - oddly enough, I comprehend that to the bone, although what it means to me and what it may mean to you are likely two different things.

I wonder.

If a love is bent, forced, broken into pieces, can it be mended? Can one put it back together, apply some peculiar cosmic adhesive (perhaps the stuff that binds atoms together), and make it almost whole once more?

If a love changes, grows, burns to ash, is carved and chipped away, can it be reformed into something like its old self? Can it again put down roots, blossom, bear fruit?

Should one even try?

A woman I know said "I love my husband, I care about him, but I can't be married to him any more."

It struck me cold, that.
~~~~~~
In another guise, wearing my more public face and writing with my more public voice, I found another blog, wherein I read a post regarding love. I commented the following:

"...Sigh.

When I got married, I told the poor fool that he should have some reason other than love for going beyond shacking up. Love grows, fades, changes, evolves. It's a living thing, is love, and it doesn't hang in stasis.

Sometimes a body needs something more than love to keep going...because sometimes, a body doesn't love their spouse/partner very much, maybe doesn't like them at all, and having that other something to hold onto while they sort themselves out can mean the difference between tempering the blade and shattering it.

I wish he'd listened. Some of us are not easy to love...or, perhaps, easy to love but not to live with. Try forcing a flame to burn always as it was in the first moment you saw it.

I think that loving another doesn't diminish the love one feels/felt for the first. I think sometimes one needs more than a single person can provide...and I don't refer only to sex. Sometimes, one needs spiritual nourishment, emotional nourishment, a love beyond touching. I think that trying to contain love in one box, one bag, one relationship is like trying to grasp a handful of water - the tighter you squeeze, the less you get and the more you find flowing away.

How sad is it that petty jealousies would interfere with that craved for completion? Is it love that cages the bird? Or is it love that flings wide the door and frees the spirit within, trusting that it will return of its own accord?"

I signed it with this parenthetical statement after my name:

"(who knows only too well that love, bound unto suffocation, can so easily turn to anger, resentment, and bitterness until it has burned itself out into a cold emptiness tasting of ash and scorched metal)(Why yes, I'm familiar with hyperbole, why do you ask?)"

I also commented later, regarding another reader's words:

"When the soul hungers, the heart falters, and why is it so wrong to seek blessed rain when one is parched? How did we come to this, this idea that one may love only one, and then it must be forever?

It's a fine notion, in stories, where people do not change, grow, become different beings in their lifetimes, but out here? In the world not on the pages? It's suffocating!

I don't like mushrooms. Some people do, but I don't. I don't think I can find all I need from one love. Some people can, but I cannot. We are all different, with differing wants and needs - so why is it that I can order a meal without mushrooms and no one bats an eye, but I cannot love more than one at a time without raising a ruckus??

Loving isn't owning. I DO wish more people could see that."

And again, after I signed my name:

"(loving, compassionate, lost, and determined to muddle through somehow"
~~~~~
What does it all mean?
~~~~~
I am struggling to breathe, to sing, to break free of...something...but I fear I am mired. I am afraid to look at myself, or anyone else, and I feel I should lock myself away from society until I can force myself to grow as my gardeners would have me...unnatural though it feels.
~~~~~
I have an old, dear friend, one I haven't seen in years. I could go visit this man who was my teacher, who saved my life with his kindness, compassion, and intelligence...but I do not. Because I hate the way I look, and can't see any beauty with which I may show him I was worth the effort.

One day, I would like to believe that I have, within if not without, something lovely. It's not today, though. Today I am slime-molds and rotting things, and could I part company with myself (like the head and body of the King of the Moon), I would do so swifter than a hawk's stoop.
~~~~~
I'm not fishing for compliments. I am simply opening a festering wound and letting the ugliness pour out, hoping that one day, it will be the last time...that I will drain from myself the extent of this dark putrescence and heal. I fear I will be too old, that it will be too late, and the loving I crave, the loving that I know to be within myself, the loving that I want so desperate to twine with another...well, it will sit untouched, unknown, withered and small in a shadowed corner of my soul.

I wish I could have loved freely, openly, with wanton abandon, when I was young.

I wish I could have been a child, with a child's lightness, and let to grow into womanhood without the meddling of evil hands that sought to shape me elsewise.
~~~~~
I am hurting tonight, and have no arms to hold me and sooth, no voice to murmur, no spirit to draw upon for strength, no one to lean upon feeling safe, cherished, despite my shadows, and I am hurting deeply and with familiarity, and I am weary with it.
~~~~~
What am I to do?

What am I to do...?