one woman searching for a name in a really big world
Sometimes it is impossible to stop dreaming,
The glimmer of hope that hung in your eye; dimple in smile
Turned from me now.
This city is sad and I am watching it screaming.
All memories of you and I can’t make the meaning.
If I hadn’t hurt you, if I had just held on;
Tears come again and I fall down.
Sometimes it’s impossible to Believe now.
Your strum on guitar, your flex of an arm;
Never to hold me.
My injury is deep and I am watching it healing.
Scabbed over history that sill has me reeling
This is a letter to my soon to be ex-husband. Maybe to all the men who have become categorized as alphabetical representations of people and lost their names or titles once held. Mostly however, this is for him.
When I was young I looked into peoples windows and watched their normal lives from a far. My adolescence was a struggle-adults were not trustworthy; I hoped for something better. I thought that families were pictures on the wall, wreaths on doors, welcome mats and pets in the window smiling out. I thought that if those measurable and attainable things could be seen through my windows then I would surely be content.
As I grew up and made some friends I learned that most houses had some shit inside that you couldn’t see from the street. The owners kept the ugly in the rear facing rooms, or basement but it was there-its always there. Abusive dads, drunk moms, mean brothers, addicted sisters, biting dogs that no one trained or pays attention to. They are all there and waiting for naive preteens to come over for dinner or a sleep over with their friend and notice, hear it or get bit.
You X, especially know all too well that as a young adult I had not stopped comparing myself to others or coveting what they had. Wise to and offended by the white standard of beauty-I should have thought more critically about how that very model applies in other situations. The Hallmark standard of love. Two shiny faces, a sparkling diamond ring, a house, pets and a kid. If I could check those things off then I would really be safe. I spent years offering my vagina to men who weren’t giving nearly as much back in a waify attempt to fit some model and then I found you. We fought like hell but you stuck around, you were not a cheater and I didn’t think you would leave. You photographed well.
I rushed a wedding, we couldn’t afford it and it wasn’t the event we really wanted but I had to check that shit off and the pictures turned out great: 1 down. We had too many animals. I love our dogs but we stretched ourselves too thin, over committed to medical expenses and food we truly couldn’t afford. Obligated time you didn’t have. They didn’t go for as many walks as big dogs should, they could have learned more tricks but man they were cute piled up on the couch and we sure looked happy if you peeked in the window (until they noticed and the bark alarms went off). We didn’t quite make it to kid. I guess I could have arranged that, skipped a pill, told a lie. I am not that girl-you think a lot (should I say little) of me, but still I am not that girl. Instead I shouldered the emotional abuse, the accusations and the labels. Years of ‘you wouldn’t be a good parent’, ‘you would hurt your child like your mom hurt you’, ‘you are a narcissist, a manipulator, an abuser, bi-polar, bpd…’. Never did you hear that you would not be a good father because of ADD, that you would leave a child in a diaper past when you smelled it because you are lazy, that you would be erratic and judgmental and egotistical just like your father, dismissive and cold like your mother. Never were you belittled, demeaned and emotionally wrecked by someone else’s personal fears or insecurities. Those things I worried about, those things I said to friends.
What didn’t photograph well was the psychological manipulation. All humans transgress against other humans, the kind ones apologize, recognize and do not repeat the transgression. I recognized my offences early on and was honest about them. I sought clinical and personal intervention and grew tremendously. I never repeated those mistakes, I did not engage in violence. In most arguments you referred to me as an abuser, without empathy, a psychopath. You never allowed me to live without the shadow of what had happened almost a decade earlier and had never been repeated. You created a sense that I would always be wrong, always be sick, always be the aggressor. Even now, after 7 years of marriage, 10 years of a relationship the instances that you name as to why you walked away, the things you say I did are 8 years old and not once repeated. The hole in our bedroom door though… who made that?
What is my point? Why is this public?
This is what it looks like to find your feet after years on your knees. This is what is sounds like when I stop whispering decide to shout it out. When I confront that you were an image in a photograph, a Christmas tree in a window-you were an ideal but not truth and certainly not the best I could do.
Step into a world with me, full of nostalgia and recompense–a place where you can get comfy–or maybe not, maybe you just feel incredibly awkward. Take a look around Lucy, tell me what you think. Did I decorate the walls of myself accurately to portray the struggling super hero grabbing onto idols and crying over dead gods. I could have been more subtle in the color scheme but I went bold–afraid to hide my true self in the shadows. I’ve got to be honest with you Lucy; we have come too far to start the bull shit now. Where we are there really is no reason to obscure reality, beat around bushes, deny our intentions. We might as well say what we mean, put it out on the table, staple our tongues to figurative feet.
I have lost a lot in 34 years and growing. Several boyfriends, 1 husband, 2 parents. I don’t know if I have always lost them or if I have at least occasionally walked away. Not from the parents, they didn’t present that choice, but boyfriends–they come and go. Husbands? Maybe that was mutual. What I maybe haven’t done is said what I mean, told what I wanted… I know repetitive theme. The theme of this chat is the processing of when it is better to say it outright or keep you mouth shut. When it is sexier to to be direct or play coy.
Long winded way of getting around to asking for sex. Or asking you, Lucy, your opinion of asking for sex. Is that something we do? Flat out, when we’re grown ups? A matter of confidence, some jen et se qua–ask and you shall receive. So friend, you’re hot–I like it, wanna bang? Should we approach each other this way or find some more subtly? On the receiving end of a completely unexpected proposition is it arrogant to go with a sense of ‘fuck yeah I still got it’? or naive to go with the vague ‘it’s always in the bag’. Maybe, both suck though. Instead I pick ‘nah man. I got better’.
You see Lucy, I think: when we grow up we figure some shit out. We know what’s worth risking ourselves for. What’s risking love for–even as cliche as it sounds Lucy, what’s worth risking for love. I resolve that I risked a whole lot for my love and I just don’t believe this proposition to be worth it.
All of the lyrics
Heard 1000 times hurt;
Now… I look at walls and see your face,
Cracks in floor, Trace your veins. Its empty… it’s exploding
Poetry of song repeats and it calls us no
It calls everything into question.
Let’s just sit and listen. Turn it up. Louder please.
Play Parabola again, Its my favorite. You are somewhere else… Sound just echoes back.
The volume hurts my ears.
At least that pain I understand.
I can’t hide this reality from both of us. Put it on repeat.
Send a text. Wait.
Its dishonest; I apologize for that.
Things aren’t going so great. You usually already know.
I don’t know if you’re safe; I don’t pray.
If I did, it would be for you.
Is the truth always better than a lie? Eh… I’m not sure. Maybe. If you want something meaningful between yourself and the person you are or aren’t lying to, most likely. But what about the truth wrapped in pretty packaging? Pretty sure I’ve heard that the sandwich method just leaves you with soggy misguided lettuce, not sure if it is a condiment or a vegetable and more or less resolved to be picked off and tossed aside nonetheless.
What if the truth hurts but it’s nobody’s fault. It’s nothing you or they did wrong per say, just painful. What if they have nowhere to be for instance: flight was cancelled, their soon to be ex-husband kicked them out, their home burned down… but honestly they’re in your space. Their problem is bigger than yours but the truth is you’re a bit weary of them, you need a break. You wish they would just get the fuck lost. How can you possibly say that? Is love just about eating the truth and getting through it? Wouldn’t truth eating corrupt the very center of love being about shit feeling good? If you love someone don’t you just never have the feeling that you want them to get the fuck lost—shouldn’t you microchip the bitch?
How about the beginning of a relationship when everything is new and scary. Do you ride it out and wait and see if what you hope for comes to fruition or if what you are afraid of actually rapes you in the closet? Do you open up, lead the like 5th date with ‘so I’ve been wondering, do you want to sexually degrade and humiliate your partner—cuz uh, bro, misogynists are terrifying.’ Is that too much honesty?
If the truth implies that there is something off about the other person, something to be suspicious or leery of, wouldn’t it just harm them to know it? All the little glimmers of doubt that race through your mind; the moments of worry or the ‘why are they here’(s), maybe it’s best to keep yourself conscious, unflattering, self-deprecating nature hidden. It’s probably best to front the confidence and assume they are there because there is nowhere better, you are Zeus, Athena, Denzel, Barry… something beautiful…something lovable.
But maybe you’re not. Maybe you fucked up, maybe you did something big, something small, maybe nothing at all but you felt it or worse, you feel it. When do you tell them and when does it matter? If everything is doomed and smoldering in ash, what’s the use? Should we use the truth to repair damage done by our misguided deeds, does the truth right the wrongs or only unburden the sinner and load up the victim with more suffering. When is the truth an instrument of war?
Can we decide if someone is safe within the first months? Can we ever know if someone is safe to trust our most precious cargo with, ourselves—god forbid our children—direct extensions of our beings. Relationships are weapons, grenades without clips and you just hope the other person will hold on. When do they become landmines that you’re just too terrified to jump off of?
I loaded the clip in my intimacy gun and spun the chamber a few times, pointed it directly at my head (always the brain) and went for my best. I’ve never been sure if I’m hoping for the bullet I would never get to hear or the empty click back but it keeps misfiring either way. Truth is I’ve never shot a hand gun.
We edify our partner by having no intention of doing so. By looking at them without judgement and seeing something sincere reaching back to us; looking inward instead for form or function, blame or guilt, strength or solace. We all need a partner we can trust and turn to, but we give them tools and power when we examine our own reaction first and find some measure of what we need before laying our anxieties out for them. Could this lead to communicating openly with a partner as to what is missing instead of banging our love struck heads against a wall? It is starting to seem to me like this might be the route to helping those you love and asking for help in turn; rather than the standard routine I always play out…
There is an enormous burden of responsibility on anyone attempting to love someone else. People are incredibly fragile. We break like little china dolls. Maybe when we look to ourselves for the cause of our own anguish or source of our own relief we protect our partners feeling just a little bit. Or maybe I’m a stupid self-loathing bitch Lucy, how would I know everybody’s always told me I’m the one that’s wrong-over reacting or hyperventilating. Maybe its all the hyperventilating.
I suspect that I’m on to something. I think that when we start to detract from the ones we love is when we start to look at them first, find fault with their actions, fail to see our own role in every social dynamic, forget where the scared innocent human inside them is (its always there Lucy). We stop being able to edify our partner the moment we begin to try to do so. Of course they have flaws but no we can’t fix them, it sounds easy and cliche but we always get caught trying. Maybe just by being honest and communicating about our own bullshit they won’t be afraid of theirs.
Judgement doesn’t seem to make people like you. Labeling them most likely will never encourage trust. We have so much power in the lives of someone else, we give them so much power in our own. Could we maybe do more to edify each other if we were just a little less judgmental and a little more forgiving? Aren’t we all glass houses?
We learn a lot as we age. Even the dullest of our species are expected to; it’s how we grow. Or, I guess, it’s even how we sometimes stunt our own growth with the things we chose to stick with. The things we learned we liked even if they were harmful and satiated ourselves with (hatred, regret, animosity, chemicals, violence)…
We learn that what we believe is often not true, what we were afraid of is usually just opportunity and what we want because it looks good in the box (or as a dear friend puts it, looks good on paper) is not actually something that will help make us whole. We learn so very much as we grow but some of us don’t quite pick up until the end that what we are really doing is filling ourselves out—adding to our substance with all of life’s experience.
I do not have a soul, no spirit to love. My brain is folded back on itself a thousand times with memories and realities; sometimes struggling to separate the fiction. Hearts ‘look good on paper’, they write well in novels. I don’t feel my way through an experience, I learn—and that seems less poetic.
I married a man because my brain told me that I loved him, my brain wrote all the poetry. I married a man because he looked great on paper, shiny in the box. My heart had nothing to do with this, it just beat and keeps me plugging. My vagina left the game a long time ago, but that was my brains doing too. Told me to start letting the distance in. I learned that what looked good on paper, what promised itself with guarantees didn’t function as hoped. He wasn’t going to help fill out a positive sense of self, he was only going to detract from it. I looked really good on paper to him too and he needed pieces of me for his own experience, the rest though—maybe doesn’t live up to his product expectation either.
What looked good when I was 25 was security, common interests, strength, ambition. What I needed at 26, 27,28,29,30 etc. (I have to stop listing it starts to get painful to count so high) was someone who showed up—every time. I learned that security was something a strong person creates herself, loyalty is what a true friends offers. Common interests are found on reddit, values are what bring people together and start the foundation that becomes a family. Strength is an illusion and found in many different ways. Ambition is just a word, living through life and learning every day, being good to people and wanting to love—that is real ambition.
Baltimore; carry me back
tail tucked and tired, mouth too full too admit.
Brownstone ash grey streets
sent of failure clinging to the cardboard
words etched in marker plead for help.
I should have more to offer you;
grown woman coming home again.
Too much trust and empty hands.
Baltimore; catch my breath
close your eyes and count to ten, she’s somewhere hiding I’ve always said it.
But be suspicious of the things you find
dressed up pretty so you’ll dismiss
damage to person, poisoned sips of love.
Ashamed of what I have brought here;
series of failed experiments to teach you nothing.
In love always with the pain of longing.
Baltimore; make no promises
we write them only to disappoint, offer only what we know we do not have.
Human cars wreck into guardrails
I know your highways well
Path familiar, safe and new.
Buildings flash against dark sky, silhouettes in windows watching;
Here i find my harbor waiting.
Baltimore, sink me into you.
Why would I embark on something as self important as to start a blog? Why would you, my metaphysical audience, want to read it? Well, fuck Lucy (that’s what I’m going to call you reader-Lucy) I can’t say that I know.
I’m awesome but you will learn all about that I am sure.
I am terrified, you probably already picked up on a measure of self doubt or better yet ‘sout.
I think I am facing a divorce. I am 34 and have no children but desperately want them…. um geez weird time to get divorced….
I just lost someone. My mom. I was her caretaker since, well damn, as soon as I was eligible. Cancer. Goddamnit.
I curse a lot, like a sailor who really likes to talk about her cunt actually….
Maybe we will connect?
