Streaming Water

This year, like this time last, words were not typed on the daily, as the participating group expects. I’ve learned a few things about my writing habits. Typically, I produce work when it is unexpected - my best work. The excitement around NaNoWriMo in November is infectious, and I’m happy to join others around the world. But, I wonder why I just don’t write to write it down.

Perhaps I write because I forget memories. Maybe, this is not meant to be read by others. When I think of writers, the classical ones, their lives are rich with thought and expression. They experience turmoil and deep connection (or, disconnect) with life and living. They draw from it and keep on until all sides of their stories burning within are exposed.

I’ve done the thing. Thought upon thoughts emersed by scattered ideas. Only to make known a small percentage of what burns within. It’s water through my fingers. I see water, I feel the water, but I cannot hold the water. I cannot reshape it. I lose sight and am confused by the rapid, fragmented string of words.

         

I regret all that I did for love. Things never done before and likely will never do again. He hindered, caused me to doubt my uniqueness and power, needed me small at his side. He is a tornado. Exciting and destructive. In the middle of his roar and thunder, there is a single pocket of bright, beautiful calm. He’s the loneliest person I’ve ever known. He’ll break you so that he isn’t alone.

I’m torn between him leaving and disappearing across state lines, deep into international waters never to be heard or seen from again, or seek justice and impose the punishment he’s earned. I don’t know which is better or worse to know or not know where he is all of the time. I’m in danger of his explosive and quiet violence, either way.

A lesson I learned long before he crossed my path is that love, pain, anger, and everything else is felt until it is not. No timetable exists. No end in sight until you reach it. And, there is no escaping. There is only living through it. Embracing the scars as evidence of life.

**

A performance against domestic violence. 

        

Jelly Fish

Surrounded by two dogs, four chickens, one cat, three horses, and a hidden mouse, I sit in silence. Well, almost. My "thumbs up" curated playlist with a variety of musicians and sounds lulls the animals to sleep.

The dark cloud overhead is moving away despite the nested nightmares. Of us arguing, of me seeing the real you, of you in the kitchen cooking. She lays on the couch in stockings clicking away on an iPhone watching us. Faced with my knowledge of the truth you continue to fry bacon. Why are you in the kitchen? Why the hell am I there? And, can she please put on some pants. Does she even know all those you hide? You'll hurt her too. You know that better than I. Your cruelty has no limit, in what way did I insult offend you to receive what I did from you?

"Twin Flame" (2017) 

This dream is about accepting what I've known throughout. You too easily gave her up early on. You too easily agreed with my requests. You too easily said Yes to me. My mistake and only mistake is to trust you. If only I could take all that time back. All the energy and wasted emotion. I could then erase the tears and finally, finally scream. 

It weighs on me still, the nothing you turned out to be. An encrusted shell you surround yourself with glistens in the moonlight. The sun turned enemy shows off the zirconias and not the diamonds you pretend to hold. She's too young to know the difference. And, suddenly I understand the appeal. The need you have to not be seen. She doesn't know you like I do. A part of me hopes she never will. 

#SurvivedHim



// *By the Horns* by Julia Stone

Write it Out

Exposed

I said the thing, used the word, invoked His name. It sounded foreign. Unknown. Distant and valueless. It would hurt him to know. He values admiration. Expects adoration. Is insulted to receive any other kind of attention. A year ago - how do I explain? A few days ago I was asked why I missed a significant fundraising event last Fall. 

"I experienced a concussion," I calmly said. 

I made a mental note of just how calmly I said it and then immediately felt awkward because I had no follow-up to that. As expected by most everyone I've said it too (which aren't many), the person gave me a surprised look and showed immediate concern. I knew not what to say without shedding more fragments of that past life with a dangerous man I was lucky to have gotten away from. 

"It's OK. I'm alright," I said in a knee-jerk reaction.

We do that, it turns out, to make you feel better, or less guilty, or not sorry about our circumstances. All it does is diminish an experience that deserves acknowledgment. I hate I did that, but there was no way to walk it back without getting into the details.

I said it calmly and conversationally to another person. That's growth. It has to be.

domestic-violence-awareness