On Truth and Ignorance
I am afraid to write sometimes. I am afraid that the words that stream from my fingers will be too true to bear; the truths I run from daily will spill over onto paper, and they will be too concrete to deny any longer.
I prefer the abstract, the thoughts that scurry about inside my head, but they need to escape; they cannot breathe. They rapidly multiply until they become so backed up, that nothing can come out. Until it does. And when it does, it destroys any inkling of denial that I may have had. It kills me a little bit each time I type a word that clashes with my fantasies.
But at the same time, I am more alive than ever, because I know the truth. The truth is a powerful thing, and to hear it, to see it, to watch it scroll across the screen, can make you feel as if you are dying. But when you accept it, you are more alive than you have ever been, because you know a little bit more of the truth than you did yesterday. You are a little bit wiser, a little bit stronger.
But it does not change the fact that sometimes, I simply cannot write, because the truth of the matter is, ignorance is bliss, and I’d rather live inside that truth than accept the plethora of other truths I know exist in the deepest creavasses of my soul.
You Don’t Miss Them.
You give yourself to someone, and then, they’re just gone. In the blink of an eye, they’re gone. And they’re not gone because they wanted to leave. They didn’t push you out. They loved you with everything they had in them. And you left them.
You ran away and didn’t look back. And you don’t regret it. You don’t regret it at all. You don’t miss them. All you miss is the closeness. You miss the companionship. You miss the idea of them.
But you don’t miss them.
You notice the absence of tender lips to kiss, a warm body to snuggle up next to. But you don’t miss them. They were merely the soul attached to the body and the brain. You miss their matter, what makes them up. They are a person, always a person, but to you, they were a space filler, a midnight lover, a friend to talk to when things got ugly, when the world rained down its fury.
But you don’t miss them.
And you know they miss you, they miss you with everything they have in them. You were their spark, but they were merely a snuffed ember in your eyes. They want you back. They’d give the world to touch you, to see your face, hear your voice. They’d give it all, selling their soul to become only the warm body that you miss. They miss you so much, it hurts to breathe. But no one can miss you enough to make you miss them back. It is impossible. Feelings do not work that way.
Romance is a farce, you think, as you pull the petals from the flower, always ending up at “he loves me”. But you don’t love him. You never do. You never did. You don’t miss him. And as you stare at the browning petals scattered at your feet from years of plucking, you wish that you did.
I.
Birdsong echoes through your bones
when you touch my tiny hand,
but I can only hear the crows
and their tireless screeching
when you reach out to me.
II.
My heart is covered in band-aids
and plastic wrap to keep
the blood inside,
and you say
let it flow, dear child,
but it is in my nature
to oppose you.
III.
How many ways have you fallen?
You make it sound as if
I have tripped you up
too many times to count.
I’m quite sure I, too, have kissed pavement,
but my reasons differ
from your own.
IV.
I am not in love.
Skin Song
Give in,
skin on skin,
lips to fingertips,
tongue moves to hips,
and bodies,
bodies clashing,
touching in rhymes
and rhythms made
for us, only us;
no one else knows,
could ever duplicate
our drumbeats marking time,
breasts heaving,
hearts beating
to the words of
our very own song.
You are happy. You are happy, and I cannot wrap my head around it. You have found love, this is the honest truth; anyone and everyone can see it, but it makes my bones bitter.
I would like to think that I could have done better, but it’s all water under the bridge to you now, water that I am drowning in. I am holding myself under, and watching your blurred image on the surface as you float down the river, paying me no mind, not even noticing the air bubbles, nor can you see the ripples created when my heart beats. Every painful pump strains my body more and more as my oxygen is depleted, and you keep on moving as if my name was never written in the books; as if I never existed.
Maybe you have forgotten. Maybe the death of my memory in your mind is for the better.
But you are still My Past. And I carry you with me wherever I go. To see you with another makes me want to suck the surrounding water into my tired lungs, but they are too stubborn to take it in, not since you’ve been wading through.
Even The Strong Have An Achilles Heel
When you’re a strong person, and you pride yourself on your strength, it’s one of the hardest things in the entire world when you feel like it’s failing you. People don’t see it either, because they assume you’re strong, that you have your head on straight. What they don’t know is that the pride you hold deep inside yourself is keeping you from telling them everything. When that pride breaks down, it doesn’t change. You can tell people your problems all day, every last, dirty detail of them, but in the end, they think you’re “strong”. They know (and you know) you’ve been through a lot, but how much is too much?
When your strength fades away, no one else can see it. No one else but you. Not your parents, not your friends, no one. They all just keep on assuming you’re strong, even when you’re in over your head; when strength alone just won’t cut it anymore. When you can’t fight, when you need help, you won’t have it. No one will take you seriously. Not one damn person. Even your therapist, the one that you’re paying $60 an hour to help you through the pain, knows of your strength, knows of your past troubles, and will think you’re going to make it through.
But not everyone does. Not all strong people make it. Many do not. Today, I feel like I’m in the group that isn’t going to make it. I feel like I’ve failed. My strength is gone, and I am left raw and bare, naked for all to see, but everyone is too blind and too in denial to notice. I am not the strong girl I once was. I have reduced myself to nothing. No confidence, no self-esteem, just…nothing. I feel empty and hollow. And I feel like I’ve done it all to myself, which makes it all that much harder to deal with.
I am breaking up into smaller and smaller pieces. One day, you won’t be able to see me anymore.
Lies upon lies toppled us over,
top-heavy, we could no longer stand,
but before, there was bliss,
and a love so deep
we swam and swam
and still could not reach the bottom.
But the thoughts that creep
into my brain, they whisper
that you’ve burned us
to nothing but a smoldering pile
of ash and bitter dust.
I was happy, you know,
we were happy, together,
but you never fully let me in;
you had no hope
and no intention
to continue on, to fight.
You never saw it shining,
at least not in the way I gazed
upon its fervent glow.
But I was just another girl,
another break from the monotony,
a drumbeat marking time,
a sudden stop to sadness,
if only for awhile;
that’s all I was and nothing more.
If only you knew the love I gave,
if only you knew,
if only.
Oh, if only you knew
how I wanted us to be,
not how we were,
(for we were, after all)
but ideally, to shine like moonbeams
through pitch black skies,
penetrating shadows
and dancing atop
the predawn dewdrops.
But instead, we blended in
with the midnight soil,
playing games with demons
under a clouded, starless sky.
We couldn’t be the moonbeams,
nor would they dare touch us
in morbid fear of catching our
crippling disease,
and they had good reason to fear;
we were too ill.
All the knowledge and facts
in the world couldn’t sate
my seemingly endless
curiosity, my instinct to ask
why this and why that;
I want to know it all,
and then some.
But it isn’t the answers
I’m after, not really.
It’s the questions I love,
and the lessons brought forth
from the pain of the process
of conscious, living thought.
The Last Time
That day when I drove away from your house for the last time, I was in shambles. I had only come to pick up the movies I had left there because we were over and done with, but you prolonged the aching anxiety gnawing at my belly when you took me into your bedroom one last time.
You knew I was bad at saying no, and I tried, but you didn’t listen. And of course, I caved, and you undressed me right there in your kitchen before we could even think about moving to a more comfortable place.
My head screamed this is wrong! Stop! What are you doing, you stupid whore? It’s over! Don’t lead him on! But it didn’t matter; my body rebelled. Afterwards you said you were going to include this moment in your memoir, and I faked a smile, laughed a little too nervously, and rushed to go pick up my clothes so I could get the hell away from you.
The voice was wrong: I wasn’t leading you on. You knew it was over. You’re a big boy, after all. You just wanted to be inside me one last time, to touch me, to lay your eyes upon me in all my glory, sprawled across your bed. A picture-perfect moment; one that, in my mind, deserved to be burned before anyone else could see it.
That day when I drove away from your house for the last time, I couldn’t get far enough away from you, and I knew that ending us was the best decision I had made in years. Any inkling of trust I had in you was gone, gone, gone with the load you shot on my chest. You broke me that day. Is that going in your memoir, too?
