takowrites...sometimes

Let me tell you a story about a relationship, and a funny lesson I learned after it exploded in my face. A little background: We had the kind of relationship you're so sure will work out because unlike the other couples, who you regard with some kind of scorn, you don't bow down to cisheteronormative norms. We were free liberal people (although I am not a Liberal), both intelligent in our own regard, and much more intelligent as a unit. I did all the readings on how to make a long term relationship work. I thought I'd found it and thank god because I didn't have the energy to spend my 20s and 30s in a frenzy over finding a suitable partner to get married to. He was a 'feminist', I didn't have to spend hours every day lecturing him on women's rights and all the nuances of the movement. I thought we were very high brow, as far as couples go. I knew his family, he knew mine (I was silly enough to think this meant anything) and it felt as if we were really c...

I am standing at the precipice of the rest of my life, staring down into that deep dark depth. What awaits me at the bottom? A bed of feathers, or thorns? I am constantly searching for something. A home, peace, joy, hope. To be loved, to be admired, to be safe, to be understood, to be one with you, to be at one with myself. When will I stop trudging through the muddy waters of my life and see that warm inviting house in the distance. When will I go home? Once I had my home, but cruelly evicted I once again have set off on that perilous journey in search of that flighty feeling I will never be able to name.  Is this what life is? Living in constant terror; waking up suddenly in the middle of the night, frightened, clutching all who are dear to me to my chest like a child, less afraid of death than of them leaving me. To find my home, to set my boots at the door, to walk into warmth, to lay down my weary head, to rest.

He is lying with his head in your lap, and you trace little circles on the skin of his forehead, completely entranced by him. He is saying something, but you aren't paying attention, you are completely lost in your own thoughts of how deeply, utterly, totally in love with him you are. Your friends are wary of him, they say you have given up too much for him, you have given up yourself. But to you, what is love without sacrifice? When he gives mischievous eyes to the girl at the shop counter you turn away, reading some magazine headline. That is just who he is, he is outgoing, he is a flirt, you wouldn't get it, you spend more time inside your head than out of it, how can you judge what human interactions look like? Besides, he has said it time and time again, when he brushes his warm hand on your hip, when he makes love to you, he loves  you  and only you. He chose you. You know you will not, cannot find anyone who will love you like this. Commitment scares him, he has trauma,...

I am afraid for myself. Whatever ties I had to the earth have either been slowly unwound or severed off, and I am losing gravity. I am floating away from everything like an undocked boat bobbing silently away from harbor with nobody's notice and the harder I struggle to come back, to place my feet on the ground, the faster I seem to slip away. I am hungry for something but neither food nor drink will satisfy me. This hunger is so severe that I am eating myself, stomach acids burning through me, searching, searching for something that is not there and never will be again. I am stinking with the stench of rot. Something has died and I cannot bury it and so it will follow me around all the days of my life. The ghost of this stinking thing calls to me, haunting me, but every time I get close to it it disappears. The houses and towering buildings are naught but little black distant dots now. If I do not come back, let it be known that I loved, let it be known that I lived. Give my body ...

  When I open my eyes I notice immediately that something is different. Something is wrong. A horrible wailing sound is scratching at my ears from somewhere. I manoeuvre myself into onto my hands and knees, swiveling my head around, and that is when I see them.  My mother, beside herself with tears, shrieking and screaming over something small and bundled in a soiled cloth that she is gripping with a fierce intensity. There is a crowd of people surrounding her and I feel a tinge of embarrassment that they have to witness her in this state of hysteria. I try to call out to her, but my throat is tied shut with barbed wire and every attempt to yell sends its sharp blades digging into my neck, drawing blood.  I edge closer, I am so exhausted, and I notice that for some strange reason I cannot remember, I am covered in a number of wounds and scars. Crawling around the crowd, I finally reach her, look down into the bundle she clutches and let out a bloodcurdling scream. I screa...

  Where are all the people going to? Why is everyone marching determinedly in that one direction? I am trying to follow, I am, but these heavy slow feet get caught up in the mud and I am slipping, falling down, down into the squelchy depths. Every effort I make to get up fails, my limbs are useless limp noodles attached to my body; I cannot move them. Where are they going? Why can't I follow? Please everybody, anybody, somebody, just wait for me, I am coming. Please do not leave me here stumbling around in the mud which I notice is colored a strange russet. Horrified I see it is also blood; all the blood from every wound I have ever had. I am drowning in myself. When I open my mouth to scream that mixture of mud and blood wrestles its way into me and my mouth is filled with the metallic taste of blood. This is what it feels like, to die. The crowd does not, cannot hear me even though I am making a racket and a mess of myself. I am dying in front of them, why can they not hear me? I...

Who am I? What am I? Where has my spirit gone to? - Desperation and anger have me banging at your shopkeeper's door. I have no receipt and the loud bold letters on the door declare that there are no refunds or exchanges but I am persistent. I am screaming, and my voice has been scrubbed so raw it sounds more like a labored croak. I can see you standing behind the impenetrable glass, pretending not to see me. Give me back my life, my heart, that kiss, that first embrace, that first union of our sweaty young bodies breaking their innocence. Please, give it all back to me.