When She Was Young

When they look back on my life, they will say this was a defining period. A time that changed who I was. Not in the twenty-something-quit-your-job-and-hitch-hike-out-west kind of way.  There was nothing angelic about the 29 months in which I did not move an inch. 

In October, it was all pumpkin margaritas with candy corn in the bottom of sugar rimmed glasses. Big flowery scarfs and black button downs kept us warm outside run down bars and empty city streets. We were thin then, but no one was asking why our thighs didn't touch. It was the beginning of the coldest winter we'd ever see and the first that I slept with a fan.

No one will say I changed for the worse. Lowered eyes and soft voices will give way to the fact that during this period I didn't crumble. I shriveled.

Before we could put away our flip flops it was snowing. And snowing and snowing. Everything was frozen before Halloween. Heath Ledger Halloween masks gave us anxiety attacks in the driveway and the love seat on the porch became a bedroom. Blankets left in the foyer, shoes lined the hallway upstairs. We didn't complain, we didn't lock our doors because we weren't scared. 

They will never mention you, not now. Your name will never pass through their lips to lay blame or award any credit. But it was you. You crushed me so hard that I never fully recovered. Bones have healed the same way bruises lightened. But the brightness, that honest belief I held in the purity of goodness - this was when I lost it. 

This was what happened after the leaves died. When it dropped too cold to go outside. This was when the emptiness that swallowed me began to take over. And I let it. I welcomed it. 

First Painting Project

I realize how much time has passed while I'm sitting on the floor in the kitchen, surrounded by paint cans and dirty brushes, more paint on my legs then the wall. I send you a picture of the mess and ask if your day is messy to. I laugh out loud, realizing I still share every thought that enters my head.

It was 2:25 in the morning, the first time you picked up a paint brush for me. I starred up at you through tired, half blurry eyes. The belt of robe trailed behind me but I held the back of your leg, like I was the stable part of this trapeze act.  You stood on a step stool rested over the toilet, half of your body leaning on rickety wire shelving- the perfect Thursday night.

 

We're young and in love, even if we're a little old now. That's my favorite part though. I remember that night every time I come with a can of paint or surprise you with a new bedroom wall color. My favorite as of late has been that green though. The original. 

I smile to myself while I type that very thought to you. 

A few minutes later, you tell me to get back to painting because you want to see a Summer Rain kitchen ready for fall when you get home.

Middle of the night green, circa winter 2012

Over the Rails

The grass isn't always greener on the other side. 

You get there and there's mildew, 

you get there and the grass is dry like hay.

You get there and everything is dead.

Election Night

I had felt this way for some time, but nothing about it registered until we were waiting for our table at my favorite restaurant in the city and one that I suspected you probably (I learned later, definitely) hated. It was small and filled with democrats and grad students clinking glasses, chanting 4 more years louder with each round. Your hand would tighten on my knee each time someone would knock into me or jab you with an elbow. With every smile, I felt my lips loosening your clenched jaw.

As far as I was concerned, we could have been the only two people at that bar. We stole kisses from one another like we were alone on my couch. And I felt every word you said, every story you shared pulled me further to you. I sunk into your soft voice and closed my eyes, burying my head against your shoulder. To this day, I can still feel your happiness as we sat looking through pictures. 

I tell people I don't cry. I am a lot of things: tough, independent, driven. I'm stubborn, determined even known to be cold at times, but emotional? I'd say no. Most people would tell you confidently that I could hold my own in a crowd, on a stage - under the heat of distress my convictions have carried me. But you, you saw what others haven't.

It was my tears in the middle of the night that jolted you awake and back to the reality you tried to push us from. You found my sadness among the insecurities that leave me awake. You searched my darkness and promised to soothe the anxieties I successfully kept hidden for 25 years. You pulled each one out into the light and set free. 

I have since cried in front of complete strangers. Falling apart in the arms of people I've never met, hoping that I will look up and see you reaching down to tell me I'm beautiful.  

I lay in the bed you built blocks for to stop from moving as I toss and turn. In the depth of my subconscious I still believe I will feel you when I reach behind me. I often look for you in the darkest time of night, when the silence is so heavy I can feel it against my chest. I am brought back to your bedroom, where the weeping willows once swayed along side us while it rained. You are lonesome for me too, I feel it. 

To see your darkness now scares me. It pulls me apart from the inside and seeps out, in a way no emotion has ever escaped me. I still believe in the goodness I felt when our hands found each other between bar stools and locked knees. Even now, as the wolves you threw me back to close in, I hold steady. The warmth of your heart still resonates within me and I am confident that its you who will save me. 

It was a Tuesday night in November when I realized that it was love that was I feeling- that I had been in love with you since the very beginning. 

Fiona, The Great

The morning woke me to face a destruction I wasn't use to.  As the sun peaked its head out from behind the clouds, I caught a smirk cross your beautiful face. It is the same soft voice that whispers good morning that also soothes me to sleep while windows shake. I toss and turn until you pull me into you.

 

My heart is heavy with your love. The saturation is so deep that there are times, when the moon is hanging low against the night, that I am stricken with the severity of just how I feel. I watch you sleep and want to know what you dream and what you fear. I want to know your stream of consciousness as you think it. It scares me how intensely I want to know you.

 

I find myself lost inside your gaze; the way time passes overcomes me so suddenly that I am left wondering if all of this is really happening. You are gone before I can truly apperciate the time we spend together. When you leave, I wonder if you feel the same torment I do.

 

I’m trying to figure out this path we are heading down. It is obvious that I am already well on my way into the darkness of the woods. The questions that I twirl around meet me at the next mile marker but instead of stopping to face them, I let branches pull me into you. 

 

I am scared now that the sun has set but you promise to guide me out safely. The road is closed but I continue down it; in the end this blame will be mine to bear.

 

The End

'If this is the end,'  she thought,  'then let the world split open at the seams and swallow my heavy heart into it's darkness.'

Niagara is Steady

I'm saying that I want to know you; and I do at the time- more than I have ever wanted to know another being.
You're eyes feel honest when I look into them. The soft, calculated words you use create a comfort I am not use to. This comfort is short lived though and once you are gone so is the calmness you created. When we sleep, I toss and turns.
Our bodies crush together only to break apart by morning.
It's dark when you leave and I have a hard time falling asleep once you're gone.
The weight of what we have done sits on my chest.
Outside my window I can see the sun rising and the reality begins to set in as the wind blows my blinds up.