6 things you can’t live without 
- My family
- Love
- Sex (sorry, I had to say it)
- My favorite Ine’s : Caffeine, Nicotine, Benzodiazepine, etc.
- The Internet
- My friends
Tag Archives: Friends
Exercises to build self-esteem: #5. Write a gratitude list
It’s too easy…
to lose sight of the things that are really important. When I’m entangled in my laundry list of woes, I tend to get tunnel vision, all
centric to problem solving things that maybe really don’t need fixed.
It’s important to take a time-out. Step back, and breathe. Life can get a little easier to manage when I take the time to stop and smell the roses. I appreciate the little things, though it’s too easy to take the for granted when they remain constants in my life.
Therefore, I am creating a gratitude list to be referenced when I start to lose sight of what is really important in my life.
Writing your gratitude list
1. Take a clean sheet of paper (or brand spanking new blog post) and get comfortable.
2. Write down as many things as you can think of that you are grateful for about your life (no matter how insignificant it may be.)
3. When you have finished, read the list aloud and allow yourself to feel the gratitude.
4. Keep your list somewhere safe so you can add to it in the future when new things you are grateful for come to mind.
- Xan
- Beast
- Blogs
- Bloggers
- Blogging Friends
- Friends
- Internet
- Email friends
- Family
- Lilly
- The Ocean
- Pittsburgh
- Clear night sky
- My home
- My in-laws
- Xan’s job
- Our income
- My marriage
- Fridays
- Saturdays
- Sundays
- Uplifting television
- Inspirational blogs
- Good people
- The life I was gifted
- The medicine that keeps me going
- Doctors that treat me
- Kind nurses
- Contacts
- Androids and smartphones
- The ability to buy necessities
- Showers
- Forgiveness
- Noise reducing earbuds
- Journals
- Places of solace
That will never happen to me!
There was a point in my life where I took things for granted. I had a relationship, friends, a reasonable income, relatively stable mental health and no physical ailments to worry about. My life was full off laughter, smiles, regular sex, all the hugs you could imagine and a future that anyone would be proud of.
If you had told me six years ago what was about to happen to me I wouldn’t have believed you, in fact, I would probably have paraphrased Spike and asked if you were stoned!
Like the vast majority of us, I took my life for granted. Like most I thought ‘it would never happen to me’.
Today, and for many years now, I am eternally grateful for everything I have.
Most have heard the phrase you don’t realise what you have until it’s gone because it is 100%…
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Leep-Into-Cin II – Part I
Finding out about HPV and cervical cancer
Warning: The following content can be considered graphical in nature. It may contain material that may not be appropriate for certain audiences. Children under the age of 18, those of the male gender, and others faint of heart may want to take extra care while viewing this. Use your own discretion.
One Bad Apple . . .
Twelve years ago, almost to the day, the relationship with my first love started. We had gone circles for over six months. He eyed me, and I fancied him. We spoke almost daily and we had become great friends. There were many late night conversations, spilling out our hopes, dreams, fears… But, he was forbidden fruit, the tastiest of them all. He was my best friend’s boyfriend. After over a month of clandestine meetings, secret phone conversations, secrets, and lies, I came clean. And within six months after that, we were no longer…
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The Friday Confessional : I Loved You More
When Xan and I were getting together, I once wrote in a journal, “What’s the difference between a best friend and a lover?” The only answer I could muster was, “The fact that they aren’t physically intimate. That’s about it.” Not that two people aren’t attracted to each other, but that two people were not being sexual. It was the only hard and fast line I could define.
Even that line begins to blur at some point.
I had my first kiss at thirteen. It was New Years Eve and we were sitting up on a snow covered roof with a friend. We were close together, wrapped in a blanket for warmth. We all were talking about life and love, and it was so silent outside besides our own voices. Suddenly, the world burst to life with people shouting and pots and pans banging. Our friend started to hoot and holler. I looked at my friend, and had so many fond, but conflicted feelings.
That’s when my best friend put her hands on my face and kissed me deeply.
We were the best of friends for over a year at that point. In that year, I began to become symptomatic. She was my confidant, and I poured my heart and soul out to her in the early hours of many a Saturday morning. Her hugs were the warmest and tightest, the kind that brought a person back from the brink and back down to Earth. She rooted me, and often became the sole reason I didn’t slash my wrists right there and then.
Her parents were divorcing at the time. She was forced from her family home into a tiny apartment with her mom. Her mom started working, so we had a lot of time alone. Somehow, we both managed to date guys, but we never really had boyfriends. I always had strange feelings for her. I kept them to myself, because bi-curiousity was not encouraged in my area. I didn’t want to be that weirdo that had a lesbian crush on her.
It turned out that she had the same feelings. She was never one for expressing herself through words, so she just went for the kiss. I was shocked, and didn’t know what to make of it. Was it for the shock value in front of our friend? We were so known for that. Anything to shake it up, or make people laugh. We were an entertaining pair.
The next day, in the confines of my bedroom, over a cigarette, we talked. She was serious. She had been waiting for the perfect opportunity to kiss me and make it count. There was no other way she could get it across to me.
And truthfully, I fell in love with Kat. I wrote in a journal once, “She was the first person I really fell in love with. No confusion between a best friend and a lover.” At that age, I can see the confusion. But, it’s more than fifteen years later, and I still feel the same way. I loved her. I didn’t care that she was a female. I loved everything about her. I loved her fire. Her art was intoxicating. There’s still one piece that I’ve been attempting to replicate for years. But, I’m not her. I don’t have that kind of talent.
We complimented each other. I was a writer and a musician at the time. She was an artist. I would write things and she would illustrate them as if she was in my head. She always knew what was in my heart and on my mind. We stole kisses in the night and behind buildings. We shared my twin bed to sleep in on the weekends. I never thought it was strange, even before we were together.
Together, in italics, meaning we were secret. Therefore, we were never really defined. I never understood the rules of our relationship, and I still can’t make sense of them today. We were part-time lovers, apparently. Eventually, friends and family started to get suspicious, because we stopped dating boys and dedicated all of our free time to one another. So, she hatched a plan.
“I’ll date this boy and you date his friend.”
It would have been a perfect cover if things had gone according to plan. These boys lived towns away, and without cars, it was difficult to maintain anything beyond a phone relationship. Her and her boyfriend had a passionate, but turbulent relationship. I was starting to get confused about who she had affections for anymore. I’d ask, and she’d reassure me. But, there were times where she’d push me away. She was constantly breaking up with the both of us and getting back together with the other, when she wasn’t trying to manage the both of us.
Eventually, the boy and I grew closer. And one night, he admitted his love for me. I had longed for him and his kindness, being so jealous of her and him and not having that affection. I confessed my own love and longing, and that was the day we called our anniversary for the next four years. We had only a month before I finally gave in and told her.
Something strange happened. I went away on a long summer vacation after that. When I returned, she contacted me telling me she missed me. And we were back on until the late autumn. On a icy November morning, she was silent with me. We used a singular computer to type back and forth to one another. She asked me to choose between the two of them.
“It’s not fair,” the print on the screen read back to her.
“I’m not changing my mind. You can’t have us both.”
“I have to choose him. I love you. I’m sorry.”
Things weren’t the same after that. We tried to go back to being just friends, but I could see the agony in her eyes. As far as I was concerned, she made her choice when she stepped out on me the first dozen times. I was just finalizing it for her. Several months later, she set me up to get in trouble, and it was the perfect cover for her to duck out on me.
I remember that Friday in March, two days after everything had thrown down. She always rode my bus home with me, because we were going to babysit down the street. I knew I wasn’t included anymore. She gave me what was coming to me for all of the horrible things I had done to her. I had hoped that there would be some redemption. She sat behind me, and I turned around to talk to her. She ignored me, like I wasn’t even there, and went prattling on to a mutual friend sitting beside her.
I had become a ghost to her – to everyone who had anything to do with the both of us. It had been like this at the lunch table, in our classes. My life was stolen from me, and I deserved it. I told her so, and begged her to talk to me. She finally faced me and refused. “I’ve had enough. I’ve taken so much from you in the last two years. You are dead to me. Don’t talk to me again.”
I was confined to my room after the incident, so I just isolated myself to my bed. I went to bed early and woke at dawn. I looked up and out my window into the never ending grey sky. And I said aloud, “If I hadn’t done any of this, she would be beside me right now.”
Later, I wrote a letter to her in my journal to say goodbye. And I wrote, “In the end, after everything, I just wanted you to know that I always loved you more than anyone.”
Purses Anonymous
Inspired by Ruby Tuesday, who wrote Trust Me, I Know, I’d like to just bare all and show the contents of my purse. Now, up until I saw Ruby’s everyday purse, I thought I was a serious bag lady. I don’t know if other women have this problem where they find that each purse begins to get bigger, and bigger with age. I started out late with purses, having my first one gifted to me as a joke in college. Now, after a husband and a son, I started wearing ones with a strap across the front, just because my poor shoulder couldn’t handle it anymore.
Mind you, when you see the contents, I have spared you the sight of the occasional diaper, wipes, and Chris’ car keys – all of which have become my responsibility somehow in the last four years.
Pretty, huh?
Now, we spill . . .
And now, pretty scary.
I decided I’d like to make this into a contest. The first one that names all of the items correctly automatically gets first dibs on the Blog for Mental Health 2013 badge.
Clarity of Chaos
We sat together, alone on a Friday night. What an atypical Friday night, without people hanging from our rafters and music blaring. A couple of cans of beer and a pack of cigarettes were the only occupants of the old grainy table with red paint peeling. I chipped at it a little carelessly while watching him intently. It was him and me, peacefully alone, deep in light, airy conversation.
I was mildly distracted by the clarity of his voice. No ambient noise of idle chatter engulfed his words. They slipped from his full pink petal lips, with the crispness of mildly intoxicated honesty, confessions from a fortress of a man. He explained his position, the station in which he found himself in within his own self. My ears perked up at the heaviness of the content, and I felt the weight shifting from a crushing burden of existence onto him, sliding onto the table, begging for me to grasp it.
All I had desired, each last truth and beautiful, intimate moment sat before me, ready for my embrace. However, I failed to understand the dimensions of it. He began to clarify, “I need you.”
Befuddled, “Need me how?”
“I need to be with you. I want more time with you.”
Those two sentences struck me with the force of a wrecking ball, crumbling every wall throughout each layer, penetrating me into a sweet surrender. Simple words completely ravished me, turning my entire world on it’s ear. And in this entire duration of the last six months, I had been none the wiser.
I wrote an article for A Canvas of the Mind entitled, “Disorder and Love: What We Do and Don’t Know”. It went into a detailed analysis of relationships and how disorder can come to affect them. I wrote:
Mental health disorders have a way of putting blinders on a person. I have to say, there are a lot of things in this world that I miss. Whether it’s because I’m wrapped up in my own head, or I have one of the different shades of the multiple pairs of glasses I don on, I know that my own perceptions are often distorted. In short, I miss things. Sometimes, I miss very important things.
I am not one to take a hint. So, one of those subtle things, such as love, often slip past me or whiz over my head.
This admission was far beyond my own powers of perception, interpretation, and insight. Riding a ten year roller coaster of various states and natures of friendships and romantic partnership, I came to expect that no further surprises existed. He had seen me in the worst of lights, beyond any imagination of my own personal wreckage. This is just as he had seen me in my greatest successes, radiantly reborn each time out of my own ashes. And I witnessed him in his own pits, disheveled, yet hiding it well. With each crack beginning to show, every time pulling himself back into flight. We ran our own cycles again and again.
People don’t change, they just become more so. Murphy was sorely mistaken in this context. And I had made some serious fallacious conclusions in this progression.
Have I folded into myself so tightly that I failed to see this? Clearly, this desperate longing existed within him, stirring and quaking for eternities, extensively understated. Had I walled myself into such complete introversion that existing within his own mind and heart was an impossibility?
It no longer mattered. The blinders came off, and he had never been so radiantly focused though my own eyes. We were unencumbered by the shackles of responsibilities and obligations. In that moment, we were young lovers, engulfed in each other, professing each perfect droplet of affections in fine, caressing detail. The purity of those exchange brought definition and order into our world of chaos and illusion.
That simple phrase was so multifaceted, in such a simple package with a little satin bow. He had lost me, the pure, undistorted, unadulterated me before him now so many times. He had lost me to our child, sacrificing so much time and energy that there was not much left to give. Again, I disappeared into the abyss of postpartum psychosis, and dropped even further into the depths of bipolar disorder. Each relapse must have been more inexplicably painful and confusing for him than it was for me. A wild woman emerged in each episode of psychosis, severing him from me as reality slipped through my fingers and out of my grasp. In the last six months, he had to have been suffering the same loneliness and mourning for the life and love we shared.
“I’m not going back there,” I assured him. “I am better, and I will keep getting better. We know what’s wrong with me. And we can make me better together. You don’t have to lose me again.”
“I just want it to be us.”
And it is. And forever will be, us.
Related articles
- Disorder and Love: What We Do and Don’t Know (acanvasoftheminds.wordpress.com)
- Disorder and Love: What We Do and Don’t Know (sunnywithachanceofarmageddon.wordpress.com)
- Blog for Mental Health 2012 (sunnywithachanceofarmageddon.wordpress.com)
- Every New Beginning . . . (sunnywithachanceofarmageddon.wordpress.com)
Garnets and Rubies
It’s been almost a whole year now!
Today could not have been a more perfect day to meet her.
It was one of those days when everything was just so seamless. I climbed into T.D.’s new, twin, big-boy-bed to wake him for his last OT appointment. He was curled up in the center of the bed with books encircling him. I smiled and thought it was so like both C.S. and me. He opened his eyes, and he was all smiles too.
T.D. met most of his goals in his ISFP, and exceeded expectation in some. I showered and mentally picked out an outfit. White slouchy tunic and black and white floral skirt – with wooden and bronze jewelry, of course, for a more bohemian look. Wavy or straight? Easy, wavy. I was showered, dressed and out the door in less than an hour.
Everything was so fluid.
I stepped onto the sidewalk to a gorgeous day…
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Showing Mad Love
When I was writing Pendulum, I was blessed with many people who presented me with many awards. Now that I’m writing SWACA (Sunny with a Chance of Armageddon), I wanted to be the one to start passing out awards.
I have not accepted this award myself. I’d rather present others with it. So, here it is. The I Love Your Blog award.
The Rules:
- Thank the person who nominated you:
- Tell your followers why you started a blog and why you keep doing it:
- Describe a usual day in your life:
- What was your best collaboration?
- What was your worst collaboration?
Nominate five other people for this award, and why:
- A Canvas of the Minds: This is not a self-serving move. In fact, I’ll be honest. There was about a six month or greater period where it was just Ruby and the other authors (I won’t name names) that were keeping Canvas going. Here’s the truth. I couldn’t be more grateful. Canvas has been like a child to me, and there was a very unfortunate time in my life where I had to put it in the care of others. It was really all of the Canvas authors that made the blog so wildly successful. Now, it stands as one of the best collaborative sites of mental health education, awareness, and help in our mental health blogging community. Thank you.
- I Was Just Thinking: Ruby, my pillar of strength. She brings me joy through her blog, and brings me some much needed perspective. It was her blog and her encouragement that kept me blogging. She’s pulled me out of some of the worst times, and kept me here in the community. Thank you, Ruby. I love your blog, and I love you.
- Seasons Change, and So Have I: Carla, I’ve decided that you need a nickname, because I don’t want to keep calling you C. So, I’m going to start calling your LaLa. It’s an honor to be nicknamed that. A woman I worked with in the bakery was called that, and she was someone I really looked up to. LaLa, you are someone I really look up to. Your blog is informative, touching, and absolutely inspiring. You’ve touched my own blog with your Confession Friday, and you’ve touched my life. You, like Ruby, have pulled me out of the well so many times. You’ve always stood by me, even in difference of opinion. And I feel as if you treat me like I’m one of your own. You’ve touched my life and my blog. Thank you.
- The Mirth of Despair: Angel, I love that I have a peer amongst myself that has encouraged me to pursue my goals. You are breathtakingly honest, and you go the extra mile to really bare everything for your blog. You are an incredibly writer, and you lead the way in soul searching. Thank you for your insight and encouragement.
- The Quiet Borderline: QB, you’ve been through so much. But, you keep on going. I love that about you. You’ve inspired me to keep on going with my blog, even in times where I don’t know what to say. But, especially in times when I didn’t want to say it. You’ve offered me awards and encouragement along the way, which I couldn’t do without. I am so glad to read your blog and to know you. Thank you.
Lea and Liz : 30 Days of Truth
(Originally dated January 31, 2012)
Day 10: Someone you need to let go of or wish you didn’t know.
Originally, I read this prompt and blanked. It wasn’t until I read Gypsy’s Day 10 Post that I came to this realization.
Facebook is toxic. Cosmo did an article in the December issue about a study revealing just that. That article confirmed certain suspicions, so I started taking statuses with a grain of salt. Yeah, I bet you’re happy about your drunken single life in your late 20′s, since you brag about it so much.
But, a couple of nights ago, a status rubbed me the wrong way.
Bear with me. This gets a little complicated.
I had a huge group of best friends in middle school. One by one, they dropped off for various petty reasons. Kat and I were inseparable. Until a boy came between us. Of course, that left a huge schism between them and me. Lea took on the grudge personally. But, Liz stayed neutral.
Kat pretended like I didn’t exist. Lea campaigned for my social public execution, setting up shop right across the hall from me, and Liz ghosted between.
For thirteen years, we are encased in hallways and lockers
Eventually, Kat and Lea started dating brothers, one who I dated years ago (of course, that was Lea’s boyfriend). I had my first public scrap happened with Lea in that very hallway.
Moe and I were still really good friends. Of course we were! I was the only one who stood by him and spent countless hours on the phone with him when he was in the hospital for chemo treatment. I stayed with him, even though I knew that it was incredibly possible that he could die. But, it was too late to turn back then.
We walked through the hall talking, cutting up as usual. As he met her in the hallway, I passed him and said to him, ignoring her, “Later whore!” A whole fourty-one minutes passed, and my head was filled with Biology before 10AM. I walked down the stairs and met with my gay guy friend to head to the music wing. Lea passed me and snarled, “Fuck you, you white trash slutbag. You’ll regret fucking with me.”
It was only audible to the immediate vicinity, all music kids. I flew, screaming after her, “Are you threatening me, you fat fucking bitch!?”
“What if I am?” she turned and sneered, “What are you going to do about it? Cry and cut yourself?” She continued walking, headed up the stairs.
I lunged at her, screaming, “Get your prissy fat ass back here! I will pull you by your scraggly bleached hair down these stairs and stomp your fucking face in!”
Check had already grabbed me, and held me in a full nelson as I raged at her. A teacher from the third floor came down at that point and lambasted me without even asking what happened. I spouted off, “Fuck you too, Pistol Pete.” And Check had to drag me away. We were unbelievably late and it was still a walk to the music wing.
I told him, “Go in before me. I don’t want you getting mixed up in this.” I stood outside the room for a couple of minutes, listening to the melodies and harmonies of warm-ups bounce off of the tiled halls and wooden doors.
Calmly, I walked in. I turned the corner, and the whole room rose to applaud me! I was beyond shocked, and no words could come. I expected a slow, painful, icy death by silence. Instead, I was congratulated for my absolutely outrageous outburst! By everyone except Liz, who gave me this disgusted and pained look.
It was no surprise when I was called to the principals office by noon. She was coming out as I was headed in. Lea glared and mouthed, “Fuck you, whore,” as we passed one another. I growled under my breath. If we weren’t surrounded by a room full of elderly secretaries, I would’ve jumped on her and ripped her face off.
I sat across the desk from the principal in her little interrogation room. This wasn’t the first time. Hell, it wasn’t even the first time in that school year! But, I had never been in there for fighting. I knew protocol for a search. “Let’s dump your bookbag here, and we’ll have the constable walk you to your locker to watch you dump that all over the hall.” But I didn’t care. I was actually pretty satisfied with myself.
“So Em, would you like to tell me what happened between you and Lea?”
“No.”
“Excuse me?”
“Why should I? Lea already told you what you’ll believe anyway. I won’t waste our time.”
“Fine.”
And that was it. No, “I want to hear your side.” What was there to say in my defense? The tattletale always wins. And I already had a record.
I knew only hell awaited me at home. It always did after there was an incident at school. Going home and facing the wrath of my parents was worse than any punishment they could deal me at school.
My mother’s head was poking out to look down the street as I approached. I considered turning and running. No, that would make it worse. Then she’d send my father after me, who would literally drag me kicking and screaming back up the street.
Fighting had been the worst offense I had ever committed. And the worst part is that I didn’t even actually hit her. I only threatened it, while verbally assaulting her in front of about half of the student body.
“So, the principal called today,” my mother announced in front of my father. She must have meant business. Usually, she at least attempted to break the news gently to my father.
“Yep, what did you talk about?” I asked candidly.
“You tell me.”
Shit.
I sighed, and recounted the tale, uncensored, complete with swears and acts.
There was a long pause. I wondered how long it was going to take before she slapped me in the face for using that language, berated me for embarrassing the whole family, and let my father actually kill me. Dad stood in the background and just started clapping. My mother smiled. Was this some sort of sick torture? Get on with it!
“We are so proud of you!” she exclaimed.
“She got what was comin’ to her,” he noted.
I was so confused that I was terrified that I had actually lost my mind. “What?”
My mother explained, “That girl has been torturing you for three years now. I’ve wanted to kick her ass myself. And you finally stood up to her.”
“I don’t care what that idiot principal has to say. You did right today,” my father confirmed.
“Next time be a little more subtle and don’t get caught,” my mother mentioned.
“You’re serious?” I questioned. She nodded.
I almost died. If I was caught smoking, I’d get grounded for a month. If I was admittedly fighting, I’d get rewarded? What the hell kind of backwards world was this?
After that, it returned to the cold war. The lines had clearly been drawn, with a no-man’s-land in between. Moe made his decision – all men led around by their second head. Kat had already made hers. But Liz still had to chutzpah to traverse the DMZ.
It wasn’t until Moe and Lea had broken up that more lines were drawn. Lea thought it was insensitive that Kat was still dating Moe’s brother. Kat wasn’t about to give up a good relationship because her friend was too petty to get over it. And it was over in less than a summer.
Lea League, Club Kat, and Team Em. And somewhere where those borders met, Liz sat and slowly seethed.
To be continued. . .
Possibility and Ascension : 30 Days of Truth
Day 07 : Someone who has made your life worth living for.
I wrote this for my husband, a year after we got together. This is our story.
When one door closes, another opens.
And occasionally it occurs as overlapping events, rather than simultaneously. Such is the nature of life, with its interwoven fibers amounting to the gorgeous flowing fabric. We are the sum of our actions and the resulting events. But it’s not so simple. The seeds were strewn about our fields throughout a long period of time, lodging themselves deep into our soil. Then under the right conditions, they emerged to the surface to the light of day.
The winds of change can scatter and confuse time, and when we awaken, years have passed without a whisper on the lips of consciousness that this was this but now is that. When we awaken, like moles into the sunlight, scratching for vague patterns of our new reality, we are left with grins or grimaces. I could not say that I grinned or grimaced, for I smiled – breathing in the air and beauty that surrounded me. – C.S.
His accent was intoxicating. His stories were enchanting. His facade was alluring, but it wasn’t enough to disguise the man underneath. It wasn’t a question of where he had come from or what he had done, but more of our interactions. They were flawless like ice crystals, solid in structure but liquid all throughout. We anticipated each others responses. No one person had such an intricate and complete understanding of me. The seeds of our affections were sown. And yet, we were blind to it.
Could’ve, would’ve, should’ve – – – words that often arise when hindsight comes into perfect focus. Had I not been so engulfed in my failing relationships, I could’ve realized it.
The purging had ceased, inebriation started to fade while the sun battled his way above the horizon. The first dim morning rays crept into the room, scarring the darkness into hiding. Innocently entangled in one another, grappling for a certain reality that remained just shy of our reach, we breathed in unison. Our voices were so low that the breeze seemingly whisked our words away, leaving only remnants in my memory. What only remained was his gentle baritone murmur in my ears and the soft vibrations against my chest. However, one managed to sound loudly in my mind.
I want to make love to you . . .
Stunned. Paralyzed. I want to make love to you too . . . – stifled far too soon. It wasn’t the phrase. It was the sentiment.
Beside me, pressed so tightly our hearts could echo one another. An invisible orchestra played between our natural sounds. Each breath was the cymbal crash against the skin of my neck. The trembling baseline was his voice and body swirling with my soprano melody. Locked together in this eternal waltz, our instruments impeccably played on. Beside me, inside me, we were unified.
All in the firing of one synapse, one millisecond, one singular possibility.
I ached. To feel his bare flesh against mine. To be absorbed into the depths of his soul. To possess every last part of his being.
But damn logic right to the depths of hell! My mind twisted and bent into a steel cage around my heart to protect my already compromised structural integrity. I had been a victim of love, complete with open, festering war wounds. I was not yet ready to allow anyone the opportunity to victimize me once more, for better or worse. Code Red! Lockdown! I rationalized our emotion away like birds into the sky. And it was smothered before seeing the light of day.
I could’ve made love to him . . . if I had been more intoxicated. If I had my inhibition stripped and alarms silenced. I would’ve granted him access to my heart, had it not been in such a critical state. And despite these things, I should’ve taken that impossible leap of faith across that great chasm.
And that was the last time I saw him clearly for nearly six months. However, unbeknownst to us, affections simply don’t dissipate because you will them to do so. But tactics – distraction, false rationalizations – can be instituted in order to subvert the truth.
Silence, with the exception of our constant dialogue like a clear flowing stream. It was never the conversation that was important, but rather the continual contact. We caressed each other through discreet discourse, as if our words were hands searching each others’ darkest secrets. Outright confessions would’ve been too forward and obvious. Physical displays would certainly be condemnable. Our verbal intercourse continued, flying low under the radar as an innocent act of friendship of which even we were both eagerly convinced it was.
There are moments were feelings and situations are clearly defined, even if they aren’t noticeably bolded or otherwise visibly highlighted. Our book was clearly still in it’s early chapters.
His bare bedroom walls were soon filled with the colors of our affections. Even the air was different, crackling with a indescribable high voltage energy found between new lovers. And yet we were not. We needn’t have discussed it; it was merely understood. Perhaps, if we spoke it aloud that would make it real, holding us responsible for our every unconscious exchange. Our gaze met and dropped and met again, like a spark between live wires.
Chronos smiled, freezing time for us, and only us. The night stood still, permitting us to slip between the cracks of space and time. We defied the continuum without breaking our bonds. And for those moments, we were more than just two solitary entities inhabiting the same space. We were the space; we were each others’ thoughts, voices, and breaths.
My head swam and as quickly as we exchanged words, they had gone like whispers in the bitter, but beautiful winter breeze. Time began once again, the second hand beating ferociously, creating a terrible sound in my mind like gun
shots on a battle field. My heart swelled until it nearly choked the breath of life from me. I was numb from the excitement yet mourning the loss of what never was yet might have been. In another place, in another time . . .
Responsibilities and duties rooted us in distant lands, desperately apart. Being a moral person very rarely instantly gratifies anyone who continues to hold up to its code. Severed from one another through obligations, requests and eventually demands from those who were more perceptive than us, we drifted away on turbulent seas toward distant destinations. Another six months fell from our calendars like flower petals wilting away.
Familiar places, familiar faces, we once again found ourselves on our eternal carousel, orbiting one another but never to meet in the middle. Gravitation pull kept us circling, leaving others to be our asteroids consistently knocking us off course. Nearly two years elapsed before our irregular orbits had crossed paths once more. But other planets were aligning, creating a universal, cataclysmic event, speeding up motion and time.
The Eve of Omega and Alpha culminated at the end of a mighty crescendo. All in one space and time resided unrealized past, present, and future respectively as if the freshly laundered fabric of time had been folded, once over, twice over, then again. I was frozen, pondering the possibilities, and still too nearsighted to distinguish. My crossroads were much fuzzier an
d perilous than I had realized and my choices too weighted and narrow. Yet, he stood further down the path, silently beckoning me once again, always too far ahead like a time traveler. And for once brief moment, I caught his greyish outline in the distance, down the overgrown path. However, it wasn’t enough to detract from the bright signs, falsely guiding me down yet another treacherous path.
But there, another stood beside me, guiding me down the rabbit hole. He took my hand as he had done many times before and drew me in, only this time I couldn’t resist. My mind had been poisoned, distorting (reality), destroying the judges and silencing the council. I was alone in deep, dark silence, as thick and black as the essence of night itself. His coaxing, his orders, my circuitry was being rewired. I was becoming.
Enslaved, I carried out the will of the master in the fray of the sinister sociopaths. Degraded, defiled, stripped of everything sacred, anything sane or reasonable. The war ensued, my flesh the battle ground in which they ravaged every last morsel of respect.
I’m not here. This isn’t happening. I’m not here. I’m not here.
The fires in my belly weren’t nearly enough to thaw the ice encasing my soul. A piece had met it’s cruel demise, withered and fallen off into oblivion. Recollection of manufactured moments, fragments of time enmeshed with conjured emotion poured out and circled the drain until they were banished. That regretful incident eviscerated us, the flower child and I. All for not, HE, the incarnate of Hades had unknowingly paved the usually treacherous path ahead. The cosmic highways once again converged, allowing for a head on collision that this time would not be mistaken for anything other.
The spring air was crisp, and the beauty exuded more so than ever before. We spoke, old moths to the flame, drawn in, never missing a beat to the rhythm of the familiar drum. Perhaps we marked time to it, never straying far enough for life in all of it’s obstructive noise obscure it’s particular pulse. Our time was infinite. We walked the earth eternally, as long as the sky was blanketed in the celestial beings that kissed the sky. Even with every step I took, I felt my chains to the other becoming more cumbersome, the burden unbearable. I trudged on.
Suppression, unconscious denial, drawing fine lines in the sand at high tide to be redefined as necessary. Only vague remnants floated in the seas of unconscious mind. Moments that hardly brushed another were only partially unearthed, still questionable to the naked eye. With fresh rain, more flooded in, flushing the ground, stringing vague context in the light of day. The night, with all of the shadows it cast upon other landscapes, stood in stark contrast to the light from the burgeoning flames, growing ever closer, threatening a spectacular inferno.
Come with me.
Such a simple phrase struck a nerve and coursed my stagnant lifesblood through my icy veins. With only those discreet rounds of discourse, a pulse was discovered and we were once again resuscitated. The obstacles were become fewer and fewer; the road cleared, becoming more navigable. Torrents of rains had cleared, leaving only fertile soil, ripe with nutrients to nurture our long dormant seeds.
Drunk words are sober thoughts. Confessions poured from my soul through my mouth faster than a river through the universe, traveling at the speed of light. I was the sinner and he was my savior, hearing every gruesome detail, redeeming me with stroking words, caressing my frail soul. The picture was black, the sound garbled like in a damaged film reel. The scene continued regardless; the show must go on !
I can’t stand, to see the morning come. While the evening rain is still falling.
Out of the ashes, the phoenix was once again rebor
n. We both stood amongst our own personal ruins, seemingly miles apart and yet within earshot to sound the alarm. His flame flickered and mine sparked brighter in return. Call and answer, call and answer, a repetition so primal and instinctual that it was out of our control. The beacons in the darkness.
What is the difference between a best friend and a significant other?
I pondered, time and time again. The tides shifted the sands more, redefining the landscape, blurring some beyond recognition and shaping others beyond their infancy. Clocks, their pendulums clanging loudly, sounding down each moment. Every word, each breath shared, one by one, counting each moment closer.
That boy loves you more than you’ll ever know.
First synapses firing, connecting, the stirrings of conscious realization. The Alpha and Omega, overlapping in folds of time. The mirage eroded before me, and the poisonous cloud released.
For the first time in centuries, we were standing face to face within the labyrinth. Side by side, we made our way through its dark, narrow walkways. Our flames licked each other eagerly, separate for the very last instant of eternity. No walls remained, only the flesh and air between us.
I can feel it coming in the air tonight. I’ve been waiting for this moment all of my life.
In the dead of night, so silent the rain did not dare make a patter in this moment, he grasped my arm firmly and wrapped himself around me. Underneath the long reach of the trees branches above, time slowed to accent the moment, and brand it in heart and memory for lifetimes to come.
I have always loved you.
He breathed into me, a life and fire to awaken mine. Our lips touched, melting into one another. Reunited, intertwined, conjoined at the purest moment of our final reunion. My being shot out so quickly reality could not keep pace. Time and space bent for us, allowing this moment to live in all of our eternities.
I, as well. I have always loved you.
It echoed louder than a chorus of angels, spreading throughout all the worlds to be recognized for the cosmic event it was. Twin souls, united, now indiscernible from one another. Two halves of the whole conjoined, intertwining with each passage, every last exchange. Our flames united into the blazing inferno, lighting up the whole world around us. He gazed into me as I gazed into him. And in that very second, we fell into one another, freed from the labyrinth. Only the world, our beautiful, majestic world, with the vast fields yielding those just emerging seedlings, existed among us.
Tu es mon soleil, mon seul rayon de soleil.
Sunny With a Chance Of Armageddon 