Shame

I like to bury my past in mental closets. Sometimes I pack it in boxes that I label with shame. But more often than not it’s disorganized. Piles of junk that I shove away. I put Shame on the door so I know not to go back. And I tell myself that I can not afford to see any of it, lest I am infected by the contagion. The disorganization gnaws quietly away in the back of my mind. Just more thing to remind me I’m not good enough. Even at hiding from myself. And so Shame has become the Cerberus that guards the library of my past.

We know the question: “How well can we ever truly know another person?” But perhaps the more pertinent question is: “How well can we ever truly know ourselves?”

But there were those moments when I heard a song, when someone mentioned a word, when I caught a smell, and my fingers dug into the steering wheel or the glass I was holding or into my palm. And no matter how much I hated him. No matter how much of a fool, or a coward, or an ass, or a child, or an idiot he was.

I loved him.

And, God, it might be the death of me.

Kite – Do I Love You?

I don’t know how to live my life anymore, between loss, abuse and opportunity I am a kite lost in the wind. I am at the end of my rope, but the height of my opportunity. And here I am, taut. Stretched to my limit. Terrified I might snap. So ready to be home, to be safe and then.

You.

I didn’t think I’d feel again.
Not after everything.
Especially not after him.
Am I feeling again?
Or am I taking hold of you just to survive?
Are you a certainty? Or another wave in vastness of experience and opportunity?
I didn’t think anything could make me want to stay here. And yet.

You.

Shy.
Uncertain.
Afraid.
Broken.
Why do you make my world stop in its tracks?
And am I a fool for even being caught in your gaze?

Never had I been so overwhelmed by the gravity and urgency of my own needs, and yet neither had I ever felt such fear at my own capability to lash out at those I loved in the mere act of seeking help.

And ever so graciously they condescended to remind me of the unassailable disadvantage that was my youth. As if to whisper, “You will never be one of us.”

Walls

There were a thousand walls between us because there were none. I could slip past his defenses, so he threw them all up. I could see right through him, so he’d lie. Say I was wrong. Pass off. Condescend. Belittle.

And even I would fall for his facades. Like Middle Eastern warfare tactics. Illusion, evasion. Maybe they learned it from mirage.

The truth was, I needed to let it go. If he put up defenses so desperately, then there really must be something to protect. No matter how much I might think I was helping, I wasn’t.

If you love me, let me go.

And you, my dear? You are worth all the heartbreak in the world.

If I only wanted to be your one and only I’d be a damn fool, considering what I’ve done. But the truth is, I’ve always cared far more that you know that I love you than I have ever desired your love in return.

Listen

She sat up abruptly, swinging her legs to the floor. Her toes curled against the smooth hardwood and her fingers dug into the mattress.

He could never hear her pain or feel it. He had never wanted to share it, to ease it, to listen to her voice carry it, so she buried it. Often times she wondered if anyone would share it, if anyone had the gall to listen. Or maybe it was the guts to listen. She had no dark past, no dark side and no dark secrets, yet everyone wanted to shrink away from her. Sometimes she would entertain the idea of getting a drink with a stranger and telling him all sorts of things about herself, staying till the bar closed and then going their separate ways, never to see or speak to each other again. Of course the trouble with such a fantasy was finding someone who was content to merely talk.

She shivered, wrapping her arms about herself. The air in the room was frigid after the warmth of her bed. Just a few steps to the closet and her bathrobe.

Her mind came back to him again. The sting of regret. And before she could shut it off the snapshots played. An exchange of glances, laughter, a touch on the arm, emails unreplied, passing without speaking, parting without goodbyes. A whole story remembered in a moment and forgotten in the next. No one would ever know what it meant to her. The trouble was not hating the world for it. She told herself she’d be lucky if anyone ever listened, understood and cared. Those three were hard to find.

Maybe the world was just cold.