One Third 

The days are black

And my nights are bright. 
Searching for a meaning 

To make it all right. 
I plead for redemption. 

But there is none to be had. 
I have done no ill. 

But I have done no right. 

Eye of the Storm

There is a trail of broken people making bad choices leading up to the stoop where I sit. The people, the poor decisions, they swirl around and around, and here I am, with him in my arms, resting his head on a keyboard. 

“It’s okay. I’m here. I’m sorry. Don’t be afraid.” I coo as I hold him close. 
But it’s not okay. The damage has been done and I am here alone, speaking to ears that don’t listen. I can’t undo it. And neither can anyone else along this trail of poor choices and flawed people. 

I can’t say that I caused this mess, nor did I have any part in it, but I am reeling from it’s devastation. Positively beaten and defeated, I can’t eek a surrender, I can only ask with my eyes one question, “Why?” 

I wish I had answers on why this storm occurred and why so few along the way did the “right thing.” And I understand that there can be moral ambiguity at times, but in this case, there was nothing to speculate. 

You people are broken. You people did the wrong thing. And now here I am. Holding, consoling a cadaver.  

The Sky

How can the feelings I have be unnatural when I see it all around me? The sky hugs the Earth in its infinite blue. The ocean breathes it’s rhythmic blue. These natural colossuses live blue and shape our world. My feelings may in fact be natural, but that doesn’t hold me back from being a titanic powerhouse. Blue isn’t a disqualifier. Blue is simply a quality. 

Your fond memories of him were really of me. 

You don’t quite realize this, but he and I were connected by super glue. Where he left off, I began. I knew everything about him and in return he loved me. We worked well together in that he and I knew where responsibilities lied. As the designated administrator, I knew his every detail to execute my duties flawlessly. I was also in charge of creative ideas, which passed his approval, and I then executed. His job was to settle me down when I got too high strung. And he did so diligently and patiently. 

He was the type of person who liked to sit down and bury himself in a task or thing. He didn’t like to be bothered while working and he hated dealing with the minute. So I handled the day-to-days so that he wouldn’t have to. 

When looking back on him and the wonderful things you did together, you cherish those times and the things he did/planned for you. The times were fun and the things were thoughtful. Forever will they remain with you as part of his memory. 

Understand this though, while you attribute these to him, they were really constructed and maintained by me. Not to say that he didn’t care, they just wouldn’t have existed if I had not been there. So much of your memories of him, are really of me. 

Silence

Silence. That’s all I hear when I babble to someone about trivialities or lie to them when they ask a personal question. I’m saying nothing while I’m speaking because I’m trying to disguise how I feel and my turmoil inside. I’m disconnecting bit by bit from my friends and family and the rest of society. It’s by choice to spare what little dignity and glue holding me together from breaking apart entirely. 

One more snide remark about my choices. One more thoughtless laugh directed at me. I’ll just fall apart in a pitiful furious pile on the floor and curse everyone and everything. Then what? They pity me. I’m an incomplete human, beneath them. I’ve been battling this image all of my life, it’s not what I want either. 

So I smile. I nod. I comment with courtesy. I leave as soon as I can and avoid real talk about me like the plague. I shut myself away. I go out less. What is left of my speech is filled with silence. I cry to myself at night. Hoping for a miracle. Hoping for some fantastical thing to rescue me from my silence. 

A Love Letter

I love you. I do. I feel it in the way my mind drifts to you when I’m idle. I feel it when I recall how our lips meet and my soul electrifies and stirs. That profound comfort that I attain when I’m wrapped around you.. it lets me know that I love you. That I’m in love. At least right now. 

And though I see the cracks in the foundation, that exasperate when our world quakes, half wondering if you are sand falling in between in my fingers, I can’t deny my feelings for you. 

Are you my low dose poison? Should I swear you away and run with what life I have got left? Or are you the reason I awake with a smile? Snuggled inside peace and security. I can’t decide, bouncing in between the two. 

No matter how I debate in my head, I know the damage is set in stone. I love you. I do. And I await your next touch. Your lips on my body. When the argument dissipates and once again I’ll be reunited with that familiar comfort of your presence.

Beauty Within the Pain

I can tell when I am depressed by how beautiful I view sadness and pain.

When I look at despair and see a sort of intrinsic beauty, I can tell the chemical balance in my brain is skewed. In the way that Rain Clouds like to wallow in their misery, I do so too by seeing the torture as a piece of art. Colored in every shade of blue. Heavy lines. Powerful in its emotional depth. You experience it all like an exquisite painting you connect with. It’s a whole other level. And in its intense meaning, you feel the beauty. And so that’s how I view sadness and pain. With admiration. With awe.

But certainly this is not the case when my brain is experiencing optimal chemical balance. When I am fine, I view suffering with pity. Ah, the afflicted. Try many things and try hard. Maybe then you can feel better again like me. Until then, I’m sorry.

And in this differing viewpoints I can distinguish my mental state. Even if there aren’t many or any other ways.

Relationships are Not Physics

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These relationship/love problems, they arise from within. They always do. And here I am, laying things down to rest. A final analysis, if you will.

I have discovered that I am attracted to the “beautifully broken.” Deeply sad souls who I see myself in. I hate the way I feel, I hate the cracks I idly trace with my fingers. If I could take it all away, I would. And when I see these people, people in need the way I am, I want to help. I want to do anything I can. No one deserves to feel like that.

And I help. And I have this fantasy that just in the way I helped them, they will help me. And repair my wounds, love me in the most profound way, and we can live a fulfilled life built on gratitude. Happiness, security, loved.

This is a fallacy though. Yes, I know that I am a White Knight until the bitter end, championing the good fight, trying to spread good will to all. This is just a fact. But I can’t expect to run into this soul who will fulfil me like I have never been before. Who will pick me up when I’m down. Who will make me soup when I’m sick.

And maybe I’m that person to someone else.. who gives them everything they could want and more.. but relationships are not elastic. I don’t just get back whatever I put in.

The fact is, the only person looking out for me… is me. And this I learned long ago, when I struck out on my own, determined to make a life for myself of my own design. No one is going to swoop down and rescue me from my pit of despair. It is only me who must crawl out of the pit on my own and champion myself.

It would be great if there were these rescuers who saved you and then fell in love like a good old romance novel. But this is simply fiction. 

Never forget this bold strong woman.