From the Ashes.. New Life Will Arise

It has been more than a year. More than 12 months since I came to this secret corner and poured out my heart. In a year I have imploded. Exploded. Lost my faith, gained my strength, lost love, found it and lost it again. I reinvented, I hid away in my closet. I gave, I took. I watched my hero die. I felt life growing deep inside me. I brought life into my world, and closed life out of it. I am not who I was.. and I am not quite who I will be. I was.. and am..lost.
A work in progress.
Ink on the page.

There is so much to say.. yet nothing to say at all. I have to start somewhere.. there are so many stories to tell in such a small space. One at a time.. one step at a time. One broken heart at a time.

Once I loved openly. Carefree.. come what may. I gave everything. It was everything. Until it was nothing. We ran before we walked. We became carnage. And all that came after was collateral damage. Bruised inside and out.. new scars on old. I was nothing but ash. Burned to the ground and blown across the bleak skyline. Bits of us. All of me.

And out of the dust came you. I held you at arms length. In awe. I had the best first date in my entire life. I fell in love with you just then.. somewhere between Billy Joel and Phil Collins... and just after I stood on that curb and wished you would kiss me. Hours into the night we lay.. curled together on the couch rushing to share all that we were before that moment. Comparing.. learning. Achingly close. It inflamed old wounds and made me run... driving you home and buying myself hours to think about what my heart wanted.

But before long my phone was buzzing...

You wanted to make me dinner. I was scared. Scared of how you made me feel. Too safe. Too comfortable. We ate.. we curled up in front of a movie and I fell asleep with my head on your chest. You asked me to stay.. and I ran. I gave everything once and lost myself. I went home... to breathe.

And before long my phone was buzzing...

You wanted a label. You wanted to claim me. You wanted to be mine. More than anything, I wanted to be yours. Together, we decided. Together. Come what may. A promise I made with all I had left in the late afternoon Sunday sun. You're driving this train.

Fourty-five days later you made a promise to me. Quietly we sat together in the front seat of your truck, at the very place we met. You laid a wrapped package in my lap. It was almost Christmas. Layer after layer of paper.. boxes inside of boxes. Until there was only one the size of my palm left. The clock rushed into midnight when you spoke the words engraved on my heart. Still, today. Scorched into the fibres of me. 45 days.

You chose me. You wanted me. Always. If only you had known how very damaged I was. If only I had known how impossible it would be for me to give what I wanted. What you deserved. We made a life together.. and then we created life together. And then we fell apart.

And here we lie. In pieces...two people, one space. One tie between us. How to fix things? Where to begin? Is there a start or are we too far past the finish line?

All we share now is distant memories... and this:

She owns me.

Swept Away

In a crowded parking lot of a Saturday afternoon shopping mall, you turned to me.
Your green eyes flashing, you stopped, you stared. You smiled.
While the traffic moved around us, you lowered your head to mine. Close enough for me to see the beautiful yellow striations in your eyes.
A smile rippled across your face, your fingers found their way into my hair, and then you kissed me.

The world fell away.

A passerby saw us, melded together on the pavement, and honked. Our lips spread into smiles under the weight of our love, and we laughed. It was everything. YOU are everything.

How I love to love you.

This is where I belong.

Always.

Swamp Water

Today. Today, today, TODAY.
Today, I am frustrated.
Today, I am lost in my own head.
Today.

I am frustrated that I still have these days. These days of murky headed muddiness, where the world comes to me through strained pond water. I long for fresh air, but I feel like I just keep breathing silt. Yesterday I was on top of the world. You and I giggled like co-conspirators while we lazed between cool sheets and drank coffee from a single cup. Your green eyes were clear, full of love and mirth, easy to read and to respond to. I felt safe, happy, loved. All the things you bring to my everydays. Today I couldn't do it.

You are still you, and you were still you while we shared space. Your green eyes were the same, but my messages are all mixed up, like there is a misfiring somewhere in my brain. You asked me if I was okay, and I could only say yes. Truthfully, when you are here, I AM okay - even today. Nothing is stronger than you - and I am thankful. But all too soon you were gone, and I was left with this sagging heart in a boggy chest. Swampy.

I tried all the tricks. I played the puppet, smiling, laughing, moving around - but soon I got all caught up in the strings. I plucked away at the guitar, and found some peace. Then there was you, with all your beauty and love, raining down on my battered frame. Your key. Our heart. So perfect. Your words rescued me from near implosion. A few hours later, the darkness found its roots again. Even the sun will not chase it away.

I am frustrated - I feel like sometimes those old demons keep me on the short leash. I don't want to, I don't want them. I want to feel like I did yesterday - INVINCIBLE and WHOLE. But I only feel damaged and destructive. My mind goes after itself, spinning reality into misconception, belief into impossibility, value into tarnish. I feel like I am up to my knees in this swamp and I can't find the exit.

I want to go back to that night, not too long ago. I want to be wrapped in your arms in the darkness, listening as you fall into an easy sleep. I want to hear the sounds of your slumber quieting my thoughts, feel the strength of your body curled around me. For hours. I want to wake up to find  you pulling me back, close to you, into you. I feel like I need to hold on to something, before the mud sucks me down. I want to stop being haunted by all this old garbage.

Please hold my soul... My hands are tired and my fingers are slipping.

Dragons Be Damned

Being the person I used to be, meant that I could trust no one. And nothing. Strings were ALWAYS attached, and I always paid a price. Sometimes, that price was way too high. So I built the wall. I learned to work with bricks and mortar, with steel and padlock, and I built a space for my heart to live. I erected my fortress, I dug my moat - alone. I hung my hopes on the wall and left my soul in the dungeon, hiding behind my padlocks. Dragons be damned -  no one, and no thing - would ever singe me again.

When your life turns you inside out, it changes you. When it happens again and again, you stop noticing. You learn to live with your insides showing, walking through the world raw and bleeding, and forgetting that you were ever whole in the first place. And each elbow, each poke, each word falling on your back, feels like a razor blade. It cuts swiftly and cleanly through the softest parts of you, deep inside where the light doesn't shine. When it happens again and again, you wear the scars like a suit of armor.

You're left with a feeling of difference. And indifference. The world starts to feel like something that happens on the other side of the glass, and you walk alone in the quiet. Its safer here, where no connections are made, no risks are taken, no voices are heard but for those inside your head. And you fool yourself into thinking you can trust those. You begin to see that it will always be this way, YOU will always be this way - a disconnected spectator, listening only to the traumas inside you.

And when you get stuck up in your own head, when things are really dark and hopeless, you pull up the drawbridge and hide away. You get stuck staring at the moth-eaten hopes rotting behind the glass, counting the wounds, and listening to the screaming. It is endless. And brutal.

And then this thing happened. And I didn't see it coming, and I am STILL learning what it means. I came across another soul on my side of the glass, and I could see we are the same. You are inside out and tattered, worn through in some places, dark and tortured, and exactly like me. You get it. I see your armor. You wear it and never seem to notice its weight. You love and you hate with the same fervent passion. It is all or nothing. And suddenly WE are SOMETHING. You bring with you all the colours of the world.

Yesterday I was under siege. I was locked in the darkness with my anxieties and worries, bleeding on the outside and charred on the in. I rushed to do what I always have - pull up the bridge and hit lockdown. Switch off the sound and hide. And then your face appeared in the closing spaces. You knew what was happening and you came, even though I did not ask. You hurried. You rescued. And for the first time - I gave you MY key.

I learned what it meant to be able to count on someone yesterday. To know you can trust that. Never again will I have to be locked in my world alone. You earned the key. I promise that I will always let you in - that this drawbridge STAYS down.

Dragons be damned.

Wordless Wednesday

Thank you Green Eyes.