By L. Lombard-Jones

Don't mistake my detachment for heartlessness.

By you, I was forced to immediately sit in the fire.

In vulnerability and confusion, made to immediately

Process (amongst the other unfortunate bullshit.)

It appears

With every jump, turn, and disappearance

You have yet to sit and simmer as long

In your own feelings and fears.

I sometimes question what it is you have spoken

To your peers,

As they peer at me from across the way

After all these years.

If you have demonized me once again,

It will have been you that has brought this story 

To an end.

By your own mouth and hand.

Perhaps that's why you've delayed honest

Connection for so Iong,

And retreat from my presence as if it's something to

Dismiss or hide from.

It's odd, given we never had actual bad blood.

If it is simply due to fear of rejection,

I'm sure you realize we have already been apart

Ten years long.

You already fulfilled your own prophecy

With your own tongue.

I am patient. I am kind.

But know I will quietly look you in the eyes

With all the emotional weight harboured,

Naked,

After all this time.

I might simply ask 

— perhaps exhausted with a laugh,

"What the fuck was that?"

Know that if you had just wholly come to me first,

Before anyone else,

And elaborated your thoughts and feelings

Beyond "I don't like your friend."

Then progressively ditch my ass...

We wouldn't have gone through this decade—long Hell.

I'm here in the background. If you feel this is beyond help, I understand.

Just know there is forgiveness. For myself and you.

This is where I end.

There are no more loose threads.

For me, my life seemed to reset, like a coin had been flipped to the other side.

About twenty years ago I started in sheet metal, with a short, long grey haired angry soul named Ray (my then foreman.) He was an active alcoholic that would scream, yell, berate, and throw things at me. I was highly anxious and lived on eggshells for a year and a half. I stayed and survived him for my own living. Eventually I saw my own worth and left for my own safety and growth.

Almost twenty years later I re-entered sheet metal. (The coin physically flipped here.) With none other than a short, long grey haired quiet soul named Ray. (Who likes his beer and whiskey but is measured and responsible.) One morning he quietly said to me he honestly believes women should be in power, and he supports women in the trades. Up until and after his retirement, he has been aggressively supportive and protective of me, and in his absence, has bled out to a few others in the workplace.

One of our business owners said to me in front of the others what an impact and impression I'm leaving on a 15 year old boy at his first job ever. (Who happens to be his nephew, his sister's son.) "How many kids who start their first job in the trades can say their journeyman who taught them and guided them is a woman? It will be with him forever."

"So, you'll be coming next year right??" My other business owner asked. I think he was fishing whether I'm leaving or not. He knew of my plans through Ray that I was looking at a job in England.

I sit in my living room with a headache and sunburn the next day asking myself "Where do I go from here?"

I guess I'll renew my mortgage for another term. See where this story goes.

A couple weeks before it would be cool at night, and as soon as the sun broke out my bedroom would warm up.

This year I tried the classical choir for the first time. I learned how to sing The Blue Bird by Charles Villiers Stanford. The song hits me in the grief and forlorn feels.

Our conductor had us stand apart from our sections, I ended up with a tenor and bass and there were only two other sopranos in the entire choir tonight. They were away from me, I couldn't rely on them to match pitch.

It's intimidating being separated, it forced me to trust my own voice and push through. I did great though. The gents praised and thanked me for hitting every note and being where I needed to be so they could be where they needed to be.