Category Archives: Love

Apr 24

Notes, Vicodin, and Wounds

Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore. I excused myself to “put Trent down for a nap”. And I curled up in the bathroom, blanket wrapped tightly around me. A safe cocoon. A straight jacket.

The intrusive thoughts came in the silence. At first, they were indistinguishable from the rest of the noise. Then, one came out very plainly, rolling as a hardly audiable murmur from my lips.

“Why?” the sobs welled in my throat as the tears poured down my face. I smalled the sobs for as long as I could.

“I am so alone,” I whispered. My face contorted. My jaw tightened as my top teeth extended out. An enormous sob was lodged in my throat. With all of the power of will that remained, I silenced it.

“He doesn’t love you. If he loved you, he would have tried.”

“Your marriage has failed.”

The voices barraged me relentlessly with intrusive thought that had no real evidence. But the absence, the distance, was enough for me to formulate theories.

I was no longer slow dancing in the burning room. I sat at the piano, alone, playing out the most sour of melodies. This had been evacuated a long time ago. I took in a lungful of dark, black smoke, and now I was choking on it.

“You should runaway. Leave your phone and just hide. It doesnt matter that it’s 30F and raining. Leave this place.”

“I won’t give up my son.”

“Break shit. Starting with dishes and glasses.”

“And then take more of a shit storm than I can handle.”

“Take handfuls of pills to make you numb.”

The crying ceased, and besides the stirring, turning wheel in my head, I was tapped out.

Desperate, as people get before they die in a tragedy, I slinked back up the stairs and into the room. The house was silent, heavy with slumber. I reached into the back of the drawer. I took a vicodin, the drug that almost killed me the last time. I didn’t care. Come what may.

Grey suicide.

After I let the drugs settle in, I started the note. i explained the fundamental problems. No affection, save for the verbal foreplay. Disinterest and dismissal. Isolation and alienation. A communication block. Walking on eggshells to keep him happy and sane. Oppressive states of living, impossible expectations. All of the things I could never say to his face.

And that was only an overview.

I decided to move forward with my impulse to leave. I planned on leaving my phone and hiding away at the trestle. Alone. A place of refuge where no one would think to look. Save for Chris, who would be unlikely to consider it.

I went into the bathroom donning only a bathrobe. It was warm. I discovered a boxcutter I had hidden nearly a year ago. the temptation was irresistible. It was the only way to make these thoughts go away. To make it all disappear and usher in the empty mind born only from numbess.

To my dismay, it was dull. I had to tear at the flesh on my still shishy hip. Five lines. One for each year we have been together. I could have kept going. I stared at the bleeding cuts, satisfied with the pain and the amount of blood I had drawn.

And I looked up into the mirror at the red nosed, disheveled girl with the wild look in her eyes. Something primal existed there. That girl wasn’t me. I was staring at a loathsome stranger.

I got up, ready to sear my skin with the hottest water I could withstand. I was ready to shave every inch of my body. I scrapped and scratched away the flesh staining me. I wanted to wash this day away.

It didn’t end there. I returned to the upstairs to find him awake. I questioned, “Have you read my note?”

“No, I’ll read it later.”

“You really should consider reading it now.”

Another excuse, “I have to make dinner,” while he continued to surf Facebook.

“It’s really important,” I pressed.

“Not right now,” he protested.

I was pushing now, “Then when?”

“I don’t know. Later,” he dismissed some more.

“A later that will never come.” I thought of all of the unread emails I had sent that went straight to archive. Not even remotely close to a priority.

“Because I don’t want to ruin my Sunday. The only time I have to relax before I have to go back to working 50 hours a week!”

In my mind, I said, “Which you *CHOOSE* to do.”

“Fine. If you do not care enough about our marriage enough to take time to read this, then I’m done. I can’t do this anymore. it can’t go on like this.”

“If you want me to read this so fucking badly, then I will.”

“No, just X it out. I’m done.” I meant it. I was finished with this marriage.

He did read it, mocking some parts of it, as I expected. I knew it wouldn’t be well received. If I spoke these words aloud, I’d suffer more dismissal and rationalizations. I’d suffer more pain through his outrage, pointing out my selfishness, neediness, clinginess, and what he considered to be my inability to see beyond myself.

We fought some more downstairs. Not tearing out throats this time. But in a heated argument. He quoted, “regarded coldy like a business associate”.

“Yes. Not even as basic as friendship. I am not a part of your personal life. I am never let in. In fact, I am pushed away, even physically.”

“I was sick, you know, after drinking more than half a bottle of tequila.”

“You’re always sick. Headache, stomach ache, body ache, anything that can hurt does.”

Sarcastically, he said, “What am I supposed to do. Go to the doctor and say, ‘My wife is pissed that I have pains’?”

“Yes, something. No more excuses. I will not except them.”

“How is it that one of us is perfectly happy? i am completely content.”

“Because the other person bends over backwards to make the other one is happy! I walk on eggshells to take your feelings into consideration and not upset you. It’s suffocating!”

He paused to think. Apparently, I had touched on something.

I know he’s going through something. But, this is no excuse. I don’t deserve this isolation. I do everything to satisfy. I don’t ask for anything out of the question.

I just want to be shown love. Satisfaction. I want him to want me. All of me. To recognize my efforts. To be delighted by my displays. To feel warm.

We reconciled. But, it’s Monday. Back to business as usual. No emails, texts. I didnt want to talk to him after work. I wanted him to suffer. To question if I was alright.

I’m not.

I thought it could be made up. I’m sure another disappointing date is upon us. He did take the time to set something up, likely out of guilt that he didn’t in advance. I wanted to spend some time on the sofa. And I was asked to sit on the floor in proximity to the sofa he laid on.

Daggers. I expected it. I wasn’t devestated. I was despondent. i warned him I was close to shutting down, just a day earlier. When I shut down, it’s over. i’ve given up. It would only be a matter of time before someone calls it quits.

Once a person is out, they are out. A wall will go up, impenetrable. And i will spend my time doing what I want, without any regard for his wants or needs. he violated mine. I may end up done with all of that.

Two more days. I’ll give him by the end of Thursday, the actual day of our wedding anniversary. After that, he’s on his own.

No more threats. Action.

I cannot suffer many more disappointments and rejections.

Apr 9

Pulling on the Reins

Firstly, I’d like to apologize to my readers.  I have not be a good blogger, and I have not been able to keep up with other blogs at the moment.  My emotional life has been chaotic, at best.

Lulu's Recent Moodscope

I’ve had a couple of 60’s and 70’s.  But, I’ve had many days that were in the blue.  I noticed what the defining factor of my highest days was.  Exercise.

Training is exhausting, but I absolutely love the run.  It does take a lot of my time and energy.  I’ve realized that I need to work on me for awhile.  Without this work, I will crumble beneath myself.  It is imperative that I start cementing my own foundation.  I find it crucial that I start defining myself in different ways, through expansion and reassigning attributes.  I find the need to grow beyond what I am at this moment.

I want to make this clear.  No, I am in no way leaving Pendulum, Canvas, or abandoning Blog for Mental Health 2012.

In fact, I am reprioritizing my blogging and my life in general.  Where these things make the top ten, in importance.  I’ve realized that mental health blogging, and mental health advocacy through blogging are extraordinarily important in my life.  I have not been giving them a great deal of priority as of late, and I find it incredibly unfair to others, including myself.

Shorting myself is something that I seem to be painfully talented at.  It is too easy for me to become complacent and put the needs of others before my own.  In my personal life, I need more freedoms.  I need more alone time.

I need to stop begging, borrowing, and stealing time.

I have to stop feeling like I owe things to people, and get trapped in a self-perpetuating cycle of obligation and manipulation.  As far as I’m concerned, I have paid my debts.  The rest is for me.

Selfish or not, that’s the way it is.

Again, I am too passive.  I am too complacent and find myself working too hard to keep the status-quot when I am completely dissatisfied with it.  My foot is down, planted on sturdy, firm ground.  I am taking a stand.

Instance:
We took a brisk, early morning walk to our local pharmacy.  It’s not too far, about a mile or so.

I had warned C.S. that it may take more than a few moments for them to fill my prescription.  Sometimes, I have to wonder who is the woman in this relationship.  He huffed and puffed, and we moved around the store.  I picked up some essentials, and have been craving new writing pens.

(I will have them.)  They just didn’t have the ones I liked.  But, a frivilous purchase, although I am a school teacher, was out of the question.

The pharmacist asked me what I’d like to do with my b/c script.  It’s not due to be filled until the 9th.  Except, for some reason, I’m early.  It would have had a co-pay that day, as opposed to not having a copay if I could wait it out two days.  I turned to ask C.S.’s opinion.  I do need the medication, but not that badly.  I can make up for missed pills.

He sat there, with our son and hassled me.  Get the pills.  Let’s go.  Beast is starting to get fussy..  I turned to him and said firmly, “I am making decisions about my health and our finances.  If you or T.D. is having a problem, then kindly take him outside and wait.”

The walk home was difficult.  Not in the sense that it physically bothered me.  I’m in fantastic shape, putting a many miles under my feet.  I went on this tirade.  “It is not your mind, and it is not your body.  It’s none of your business.”

To which he replied, “I’m paying for it.  It is my business.”

“It’s not.  You don’t live inside of me.  You don’t know what goes on in there.  You have no interest in it either.  Butt out.”

I despised that phrase, “I’m paying for it.  It is my business.”  On two fronts.  I pay my contribution toward the severe detriment we suffer due to my extensive medical needs.  I commute and hour each way to do so.  It is not as if I am laying around a sofa all day, spending all of our bank account.  Don’t portray me as so.

I had pointed out at one point that he was not my legal guardian, and no living will exists to proclaim him my proxy when and if I become incapacitated.  Damn fine move on my part.

He plays no role in my treatment.  I have signed releases that he has full access to my records.  He has never spoke to my doctor about any troublesome symptoms.  In fact, as much I hate to admit this, I would be likely to declare my indecisive mother a medical proxy.  She’s done so well with the rest of the family.

I am pulling in the reins.  This carriage will not continue until I say so.  It is my life too, and I feel like I’m being completely left out of it.  This is my stand.

But, verbally sparing and expressing emotion is a tricky engagement in my household.  So, pulling in the reins is more than taking full control over own life and those dealings.  It is pulling in the reigns of my marriage.  I am pulling back.  Plans change to suit him.  I am disappointed.  Therefore, I am pulling back.  I don’t depend on him for my happiness.

I want to, I want to be someone else or I’ll explode.

Radiohead - Talk Show Host, most commonly known from Romeo + Juliet

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Apr 5

The Mapril Curse

For years, the end of March and the beginning of April have always been rather catastrophic times for me.  Since before I can really remember, this has been a terrible time of year.  As I grew older, I started to notice certain patterns.

Some of the worst things that happened in my life have always happened during this time of year.

As a child, I recall my father was often hospitalized at this time. For a long time, I didn’t understand what my father was so sick with that he’d be gone in the hospital for weeks at a time. It scared me. I was scared he’d never come back. That he would die there.

Our worst fights happened at this time. It didn’t help that my final progress report for the year would come in.

Standardized tests always rattled my nerves. I knew that these tests didn’t affect my grades. It was just implied that these tests prove how smart a person was. I knew a bad score would label me an idiot. The only thing I had going for me, intelligence, would be wiped off the slate. I’d be nothing, and regarded as more of a child than I was already treated.

Then there was Easter break. For me, there was always something disturbing and disappointing about Easter. First, Easter is not exactly a pleasant holiday in the Christian religion. Yeah, I know, it is about celebrating the resurrection and ascension of Jesus.

But, before that was good Friday. The day that Jesus died on the cross, after a gruesome and vividly detailed crucifixion. I don’t even know how the church justifies recounting this horrific story to children.

I know this one thing. Because of an exercise we did in Sunday School, peppermints are now revolting. I will spare you.

The closest friend I’ve ever had betrayed me in late March. She told my parents about a shoplifting incident that happened in January, complete with a fine that I was trying to pay off. She sabotaged my friendships with everyone else. As if it wasn’t bad enough that she had made it a very public falling out. She humiliated me.

And my father went off the deep end. No door on my room. Indefinitely grounded. No phone. No computer. No pager. No one in. And for a week, there was no school, and limited freedom within the house.

My ex Beck used my trip to Florida as time to gather support from our friends to backstab me, and destroy life as I knew it. April 1st, he dumped me. April 2nd, he moved his new girlfriend in.

April 8th, my ex Avi and I started dating. The following year, April 1st, we took what was a regrettable step into a year long lease together. A contract that legally obligated is to live together, in a small one bedroom apartment, in the worst of conflicts.

A year after that? We lost the apartment. We went flat broke and had to move into my house, which was then a complete shit shack. We ran a power cord over and lived in one room. Electricity in one room, and still living out of boxes and bags.

In late March, almost a year later, he made the admission that he cheated on me a year and a half ago. It consumed me so much that I was a woman possessed. It was all I could think about. I poured over the details. The emotion of anger, betrayal, guilt, and resentment was so much that it felt like it bled from every pore.

And on April 9th, three years after that first date, I decided that I wanted out. But, I was trapped.

Late March, before my wedding, I was tormented by my family. “You gained 5lbs!”

“Of course. I’m pregnant, right?”

“We can’t afford more alterations and it’s too late! We spent so much money on this, and you have to go and get knocked up! How irresponsible can you possibly be?”

After I had my son, this is the point in time where I started to show aggression and become violent. I was scared of myself. It was at this point that I knew I needed mental help.

A year after that, I started to have significant problems at my job. Even the thought of going there was agonizing.

Last year? The stress of putting together a children’s musical sent me flying into the ER with severe migraines. After that, I had a serious hypomanic episode. The first serious one I can remember.

And this year? Depression. Serious depression and self-harm. Marital issues. A lawsuit. A whole mishmash of events and looming threats that heap into a twitching shadow of depression and dreadful anxiety.

I have been reading references to research that has linked the turn of the season with mental health issues. March has the highest admissions into hospitals for those with mental illness. Different researchers have drawn different conclusions.

Today, I cracked it.

Today was my Pappap’s birthday when he was among the living. If he were with us today, we’d be celebrating his 96th birthday.

He has long since passed, almost 16 years ago. I was still young. He had been fighting a losing battle against prostate cancer for ten years. I was lucky to have had him in my life at all. When he was diagnosed, they only gave him a year.

My father was in and out of the VA hospital a lot when I was a child. My Pappap really stood up to be my father figure. And was he!

He was an amazing man. As a strapping young man, he and his brothers helped my church dig out their undercroft, by hand. It was the 40’s and wartime. Many men were called out to duty. My Pappap couldn’t go, on account of his severe hearing loss. It was mostly a result of working on the railroad. So, he, and other remaining parishioners took their shovels, and created a place where they could meet after mass.

He was always a man you could ask for help. He’d deny no one. And he was a jack of all trades. Plumbing, heating, electrical, building, anything. And if he didn’t know how to do it, he’d figure it out.

He had so many friends. Everyone who had ever spent any time with him was deeply touched by him. He treated everyone like family, and he treated his family like gold.

In times of need, he had offered everything he could to his extended family. Various family members had lived with him throughout his life. He was a faithful and dedicated man. My grandmother was his wife for fifty years before his passing.

He visited my mother every morning at 10AM for coffee after his morning walk. He knew that she needed him most. She was mostly alone with a severely autistic son and a deeply troubled husband, scarred by the war.

He came to every one of my school functions. I remember riding in the back of his station wagon. The only thing that ever made him angry were bad drivers. He always gave me $2 bills for my good report cards, and bragged to everyone about how smart and beautiful his granddaughter was.

I remember the first time I got a card from him with a $2 bill in it. He liked to tease people, so I thought it was fake. I got really mad at him. And he showed me his whole collection of $2 bills. And then he joked that I was a “brat kid” for disbelieving him.

I’d go to church every week, just to see him. He was an usher, and took collection. My Pappap was a devout Episcopalian, and so was I. He threw me a party when I reached my First Holy Communion.

We were very poor growing up. He often volunteered at charity events. The church had a flea market, and I fell in love with this little purple bunny. I was four, and the bunny warmed my heart. She made me happy and safe. He bought it for me, even after my mother lambasted me for begging for the bunny, as if I was trying to embarrass her in front of the other parishioners.

I named her Furry. Some kids had imaginary friends. I had her. She was imaginary in some ways. We talked. She always made me feel better. We shared a bed, and talked late into the night. I was less scared of life with her.

She still exists, and lives on shelf in my bedroom. She has been well loved, with patches of fur missing, dingy ears, paint chipped eyes, and a few obvious seams where she was sewn. Most of the time, I forget she’s there. She’s a relic, the only thing that survived my childhood. But, sometimes, I know she’s watching over me.

I remember the year that followed my Pappap’s death. We celebrated my uncle’s birthday, but it was somber. They shared a party every year. And he wasn’t there anymore.

Really, nothing was the same. Christmas. My birthday. Anytime I got a report card. My mother had removed the dining room table entirely. That’s the same dining room table in my house now. The same one I sit with during meals with my family. The very same that my friends gather around.

And, I never made the connection. I have only started considering a connection between a childhood amnesia and his passing. I never realized that it could have such a profound subconscious affect on my life as an adult.

I miss him. And most of all, I believe I mourn the time we missed most. I mourn the loss of the role in my life he could have taken.

When I joined the showband, I knew he’d be thrilled. His own granddaughter, so talented in music that she would be invited to travel the country each year to compete. I knew he’d be even more proud when I joined choir. All of those years watching me sing in church paid off in solos and special choir assignments.

When I graduated high school, I wondered if he’d be proud of me. I graduated with honors. The choir needed me and a friend so badly at graduation that we actually had to run back and forth from the stage to the other stage!

What would he think of my husband? I know he’d adore my son. My son loves cars and trains, just like him. They’d play with his model train sets all day.

If I ever do have a daughter, she’d be the light of his life. He cherished his girls most of all. He had always told me that girls were God’s gift to the world, and children were life’s best blessing.

He’d just be tickled about my job. He always believed in public service, and thought the people who did it were saints in disguise as ordinary people. Yes, he was a little bigoted, so he might have made a remark or two about it being in a city neighborhood. But, anyone in need – it didn’t matter who they were. He always believed that people were people. No less, no more.

He’d make a joke about me getting a report card. And I’d tell him that I do, every year in May. And he’d probably still slip me a card with some odd currency in there. A JFK silver half dollar. Oh god, a couple of Saqaguia’s! How he would have been so tickled by that!

He played piano. My parents both sing. I know where the talent came from.

Would he have said anything about the bipolar disorder? Maybe one thing. “You were always sensitive and moody. It’s a sign that you’re human.” That would have been that. I am who I am, and that’s more than special to him.

If he were alive, I’d join him and my mother for coffee in the morning, even if I don’t drink coffee. I know he’d pick up my prescriptions if I asked. He might poke fun and call them “crazy meds”. Just for a giggle.

He was the light in my chaotic childhood. He was the rock in my life. He was the father my dad could not be at the time. I was lucky to have my Pappap at all.

I do hope he rests peacefully and happily. And I hope he knows, that even after all of these years, and although I was young, I still remember him and everything he was to me.

Feb 11

Decent into Hell : 30 Days of Truth

Day 08 : Someone who made your life hell, or treated you like shit.

Avi.

Staring out the bus window into the grey oblivion, the words slid right down the slate of my mind, and were carried away by the light breeze. It’s not an uncommon occurrence. Many other times I will myself to think of him, it is as if he’s become a ghost, who haunts at the most unfortunate moments.

That’s why there are journal entries for these moments.  This was the first in the trinity, the one prior to Possibility and Ascension.  It was started and completed in the same week, nearly a year after the relationship ended.

The last days of that relationship are blurry; my memories are obscured by the drugs and alcohol intoxicating my mind.  The days blended together in a ritualistic, self-medicated loop, work.drink.sleep.work.drink.sleep.sleep.drink.sleep… suspended in agonizing slow motion.  The silence was deafening in the deep, dark hours of night, still, cold, indifferent.  We were two strangers, caged together with a thick glass section between us.  I glanced across the DMZ, through ripples space and time itself, eager and desperate to eradicate the great divide.  But even if I could manage to successfully navigate the minefield, a feat I had attempted in vain when feeling particularly masochistic despite the optimistic spin I put on it, I would be greeted by a stranger.  Or rather an animal, for he had regressed into a rather primitive state.  This animal was vicious and feral, seemingly ripped from the wild and unsuccessfully domesticated.

My realizations were like awaking from a coma.  How much time had passed?  Who are you?  Where am I?  Is this real? – each more dizzying than the coma itself.  Awakening is clarity, but the clearer things became, the more confusing the reality.    The chambers of my mind grew to accommodate my expanding thoughts but created a warehouse echo.  I spoke, my voice reverberated off the crumbling walls and returned with a different sound altogether.  Perhaps, instead it was an accurate reflection but one can never recognize oneself in a room of distortion.

So perhaps my lover had been a stranger all along, reflected through hopes and dreams to create a lovely distortion.  They certainly aren’t all hideous, like mirrors that make one look tall and slender.  Had that been entirely truth, how long had he been a projection of my mind’s eye onto the screen that set the stage for our drama?  I looked into the rabbit hole and tumbled down, spiraling out of control.  How can one count time based on a relative measure?

I searched farther, grasping for answers as if they were my life raft in the black waters of time.  Our relationship started with sparks and flares… – Were they real like fourth of July fireworks?  Or instead were they the result of strong hallucinogenics resulting from intense desire to feel something?  More dialogue and script flowed through the undertow, sucking me into the dark abyss.

You know how when someone says ‘I love you’, you feel obligated to reciprocate?

… Yes

I’ve always meant it with you.

My heart swelled with infection while it festered away every inch that loved him with each tides push and pull.  It was abundantly clear that his performance was increasingly scripted, as I deviated with my improvisation.  Obsessively, I went farther, feverishly searching, scanning, hoping that there would be salvage, or better even, treasure.

Heaven knows that I love you, I love you today.

Today, that day, the only day that might as well had even existed in three years.  I felt it in my soul, the answers becoming closer sending off the flares and sparks I had been trying to rekindle, leading me in my personal night.  Yet on closer inspection, they certainly differentiated from the ones in my memory.  Instead, they appeared to be a blazing inferno on the shoreline.  I clawed the beach, pulling myself in for survival, for myself, for my sanity and found the treasure I’d been seeking.

Fool’s gold.  The beautiful scenery warped into something more sinister.  Twisted, charred, black… a glorious fire to commemorate something that never was.

It reminded me of the last string I pulled in the tapestry of our relationship.  My hair was ruby colored in the dull late autumn sun, surrounded by the grey scenery of the city.  We were bound for better.  He was up but I was coming down.  A lovely romance played out in my head, on panes of fragile glass.  We were vines twisting together up a lattice in vivid green, in a dream.  He deviated, but my vision was obstructed.  I felt the support let loose, my vine withered and my fruit shriveled.  He vaguely explained and my vision returned to expose his transgression occurring.  Struck with immobilizing poison, I watched like an invalid.  And when I came to, I was convinced it was a dream.

Smoke and mirrors, smoke and mirrors, I fell in love with the demon trickster himself.  A year and a half passed since the incident and all was voluntarily revealed.  The force pushed me outside myself, forced once again to watch this great tragedy unfold repeatedly.  Play.stop.rewind.play.

Just say yes, you little masochist.  

Addictions leave you little choice.

Help me tighten these chains.  Is that my voice?  My mind screamed to be released, for me to take the free ticket to ride and go.  But my heart without it’s limbs could not be freed from it’s vice.

The pleasant memories melted into the form of nightmares.  There was a double edged sword, turning the pleasurable jabs into horrific stabs.  My monologue’s narrator was raspy and exhausted.  Playful smiles turned to sinister grins just as loving chuckles morphed into maniacal laughter.  The blaze pushed forward, engulfing everything in sight.  It seared my flesh, leaving nothing but brittle bone.

Release me, for the love of god!!

It was morning following the apocalypse.  The war had been lost and I stood amongst it’s remains.  To my surprise, I was intact despite everything.  A wave of sorrow welled up inside me but nothing came.  I had finally been released but not by my captor.  He stood beside me, my caretaker, strong and silent like an angel.

I have always been beside you.  That wasn’t quite the truth, I was sure.  He had misspoke and instead meant, I have always been inside you… I felt those words resonating inside my soul which echoed it in perfect clarity.  This could only be made possible if they had the same dimensions… making them identical.  Twin souls!  It made perfect sense as the pieces seamlessly clicked together.  Only could twins never truly lose one another.  They were the only two that see each other through the deepest pits of hell and come out seemingly unscathed.

We were whole.  From the moment we met one another, five long years ago, we were whole.  And now we had the opportunity to experience it in our own realities..

Feb 6

Possibility and Ascension : 30 Days of Truth

Day 07 : Someone who has made your life worth living for.

I wrote this for my husband, a year after we got together.  This is our story.

When one door closes, another opens.

And occasionally it occurs as overlapping events, rather than simultaneously.  Such is the nature of life, with its interwoven fibers amounting to the gorgeous flowing fabric.  We are the sum of our actions and the resulting events.  But it’s not so simple.  The seeds were strewn about our fields throughout a long period of time, lodging themselves deep into our soil.  Then under the right conditions, they emerged to the surface to the light of day.

The winds of change can scatter and confuse time, and when we awaken, years have passed without a whisper on the lips of consciousness that this was this but now is that.  When we awaken, like moles into the sunlight, scratching for vague patterns of our new reality, we are left with grins or grimaces.  I could not say that I grinned or grimaced, for I smiled – breathing in the air and beauty that surrounded me. – C.S.

His accent was intoxicating.  His stories were enchanting.  His facade was alluring, but it wasn’t enough to disguise the man underneath.  It wasn’t a question of where he had come from or what he had done, but more of our interactions.  They were flawless like ice crystals, solid in structure but liquid all throughout.  We anticipated each others responses.  No one person had such an intricate and complete understanding of me.  The seeds of our affections were sown.  And yet, we were blind to it.

Could’ve, would’ve, should’ve – – – words that often arise when hindsight comes into perfect focus.  Had I not been so engulfed in my failing relationships, I could’ve realized it.

The purging had ceased, inebriation started to fade while the sun battled his way above the horizon.  The first dim morning rays crept into the room, scarring the darkness into hiding.  Innocently entangled in one another, grappling for a certain reality that remained just shy of our reach, we breathed in unison.  Our voices were so low that the breeze seemingly whisked our words away, leaving only remnants in my memory.  What only remained was his gentle baritone murmur in my ears and the soft vibrations against my chest.  However, one managed to sound loudly in my mind.

I want to make love to you . . .

Stunned.  Paralyzed.  I want to make love to you too . . .  – stifled far too soon.  It wasn’t the phrase.  It was the sentiment.

Beside me, pressed so tightly our hearts could echo one another.  An invisible orchestra played between our natural sounds.  Each breath was the cymbal crash against the skin of my neck.  The trembling baseline was his voice and body swirling with my soprano melody.  Locked together in this eternal waltz, our instruments impeccably played on.  Beside me, inside me, we were unified.

All in the firing of one synapse, one millisecond, one singular possibility.

I ached.  To feel his bare flesh against mine.  To be absorbed into the depths of his soul.  To possess every last part of his being.

But damn logic right to the depths of hell!  My mind twisted and bent into a steel cage around my heart to protect my already compromised structural integrity.  I had been a victim of love, complete with open, festering war wounds.  I was not yet ready to allow anyone the opportunity to victimize me once more, for better or worse.  Code Red!  Lockdown!  I rationalized our emotion away like birds into the sky.  And it was smothered before seeing the light of day.

I could’ve made love to him . . .  if I had been more intoxicated.  If I had my inhibition stripped and alarms silenced.  I would’ve granted him access to my heart, had it not been in such a critical state.  And despite these things, I should’ve taken that impossible leap of faith across that great chasm.

And that was the last time I saw him clearly for nearly six months.  However, unbeknownst to us, affections simply don’t dissipate because you will them to do so.  But tactics – distraction, false rationalizations – can be instituted in order to subvert the truth.

Silence, with the exception of our constant dialogue like a clear flowing stream.  It was never the conversation that was important, but rather the continual contact.  We caressed each other through discreet discourse, as if our words were hands searching each others’ darkest secrets.  Outright confessions would’ve been too forward and obvious.  Physical displays would certainly be condemnable.  Our verbal intercourse continued, flying low under the radar as an innocent act of friendship of which even we were both eagerly convinced it was.

There are moments were feelings and situations are clearly defined, even if they aren’t noticeably bolded or otherwise visibly highlighted.  Our book was clearly still in it’s early chapters.

His bare bedroom walls were soon filled with the colors of our affections.  Even the air was different, crackling with a indescribable high voltage energy found between new lovers.  And yet we were not.  We needn’t have discussed it; it was merely understood.  Perhaps, if we spoke it aloud that would make it real, holding us responsible for our every unconscious exchange.  Our gaze met and dropped and met again, like a spark between live wires.

Chronos smiled, freezing time for us, and only us.  The night stood still, permitting us to slip between the cracks of space and time.  We defied the continuum without breaking our bonds.  And for those moments, we were more than just two solitary entities inhabiting the same space.  We were the space; we were each others’ thoughts, voices, and breaths.

My head swam and as quickly as we exchanged words, they had gone like whispers in the bitter, but beautiful winter breeze.  Time began once again, the second hand beating ferociously, creating a terrible sound in my mind like gunshots on a battle field.  My heart swelled until it nearly choked the breath of life from me.  I was numb from the excitement yet mourning the loss of what never was yet might have been.  In another place, in another time . . .

Responsibilities and duties rooted us in distant lands, desperately apart.  Being a moral person very rarely instantly gratifies anyone who continues to hold up to its code.  Severed from one another through obligations, requests and eventually demands from those who were more perceptive than us, we drifted away on turbulent seas toward distant destinations.  Another six months fell from our calendars like flower petals wilting away.

Familiar places, familiar faces, we once again found ourselves on our eternal carousel, orbiting one another but never to meet in the middle.  Gravitation pull kept us circling, leaving others to be our asteroids consistently knocking us off course.  Nearly two years elapsed before our irregular orbits had crossed paths once more.  But other planets were aligning, creating a universal, cataclysmic event, speeding up motion and time.

The Eve of Omega and Alpha culminated at the end of a mighty crescendo.  All in one space and time resided unrealized past, present, and future respectively as if the freshly laundered fabric of time had been folded, once over, twice over, then again.  I was frozen, pondering the possibilities, and still too nearsighted to distinguish.  My crossroads were much fuzzier and perilous than I had realized and my choices too weighted and narrow.  Yet, he stood further down the path, silently beckoning me once again, always too far ahead like a time traveler.  And for once brief moment, I caught his greyish outline in the distance, down the overgrown path.  However, it wasn’t enough to detract from the bright signs, falsely guiding me down yet another treacherous path.

But there, another stood beside me, guiding me down the rabbit hole.  He took my hand as he had done many times before and drew me in, only this time I couldn’t resist.  My mind had been poisoned, distorting (reality), destroying the judges and silencing the council. I was alone in deep, dark silence, as thick and black as the essence of night itself.  His coaxing, his orders, my circuitry was being rewired.  I was becoming.

Enslaved, I carried out the will of the master in the fray of the sinister sociopaths.  Degraded, defiled, stripped of everything sacred, anything sane or reasonable.  The war ensued, my flesh the battle ground in which they ravaged every last morsel of respect.

I’m not here. This isn’t happening.  I’m not here.  I’m not here.

The fires in my belly weren’t nearly enough to thaw the ice encasing my soul.  A piece had met it’s cruel demise, withered and fallen off into oblivion.  Recollection of manufactured moments, fragments of time enmeshed with conjured emotion poured out and circled the drain until they were banished.  That regretful incident eviscerated us, the flower child and I.  All for not, HE, the incarnate of Hades had unknowingly paved the usually treacherous path ahead.  The cosmic highways once again converged, allowing for a head on collision that this time would not be mistaken for anything other.

The spring air was crisp, and the beauty exuded more so than ever before.  We spoke, old moths to the flame, drawn in, never missing a beat to the rhythm of the familiar drum.  Perhaps we marked time to it, never straying far enough for life in all of it’s obstructive noise obscure it’s particular pulse.  Our time was infinite.  We walked the earth eternally, as long as the sky was blanketed in the celestial beings that kissed the sky.  Even with every step I took, I felt my chains to the other becoming more cumbersome, the burden unbearable.  I trudged on.

Suppression, unconscious denial, drawing fine lines in the sand at high tide to be redefined as necessary.  Only vague remnants floated in the seas of unconscious mind.  Moments that hardly brushed another were only partially unearthed, still questionable to the naked eye.  With fresh rain, more flooded in, flushing the ground, stringing vague context in the light of day.  The night, with all of the shadows it cast upon other landscapes, stood in stark contrast to the light from the burgeoning flames, growing ever closer, threatening a spectacular inferno.

Come with me.

Such a simple phrase struck a nerve and coursed my stagnant lifesblood through my icy veins.  With only those discreet rounds of discourse, a pulse was discovered and we were once again resuscitated.  The obstacles were become fewer and fewer; the road cleared, becoming more navigable.  Torrents of rains had cleared, leaving only fertile soil, ripe with nutrients to nurture our long dormant seeds.

Drunk words are sober thoughts.  Confessions poured from my soul through my mouth faster than a river through the universe, traveling at the speed of light.  I was the sinner and he was my savior, hearing every gruesome detail, redeeming me with stroking words, caressing my frail soul.  The picture was black, the sound garbled like in a damaged film reel.  The scene continued regardless; the show must go on !

I can’t stand, to see the morning come.  While the evening rain is still falling.

Out of the ashes, the phoenix was once again reborn.  We both stood amongst our own personal ruins, seemingly miles apart and yet within earshot to sound the alarm.  His flame flickered and mine sparked brighter in return.  Call and answer, call and answer, a repetition so primal and instinctual that it was out of our control.  The beacons in the darkness.

What is the difference between a best friend and a significant other?

I pondered, time and time again.  The tides shifted the sands more, redefining the landscape, blurring some beyond recognition and shaping others beyond their infancy.  Clocks, their pendulums clanging loudly, sounding down each moment.  Every word, each breath shared, one by one, counting each moment closer.

That boy loves you more than you’ll ever know.

First synapses firing, connecting, the stirrings of conscious realization.  The Alpha and Omega, overlapping in folds of time.  The mirage eroded before me, and the poisonous cloud released.

For the first time in centuries, we were standing face to face within the labyrinth.  Side by side, we made our way through its dark, narrow walkways.  Our flames licked each other eagerly, separate for the very last instant of eternity.  No walls remained, only the flesh and air between us.

I can feel it coming in the air tonight.  I’ve been waiting for this moment all of my life.

In the dead of night, so silent the rain did not dare make a patter in this moment, he grasped my arm firmly and wrapped himself around me.  Underneath the long reach of the trees branches above, time slowed to accent the moment, and brand it in heart and memory for lifetimes to come.

I have always loved you.

He breathed into me, a life and fire to awaken mine.  Our lips touched, melting into one another.  Reunited, intertwined, conjoined at the purest moment of our final reunion. My being shot out so quickly reality could not keep pace.  Time and space bent for us, allowing this moment to live in all of our eternities.

I, as well.  I have always loved you.  

It echoed louder than a chorus of angels, spreading throughout all the worlds to be recognized for the cosmic event it was.  Twin souls, united, now indiscernible from one another.  Two halves of the whole conjoined, intertwining with each passage, every last exchange.  Our flames united into the blazing inferno, lighting up the whole world around us.  He gazed into me as I gazed into him.  And in that very second, we fell into one another, freed from the labyrinth.  Only the world, our beautiful, majestic world, with the vast fields yielding those just emerging seedlings, existed among us.

Tu es mon soleil, mon seul rayon de soleil.