From Within the Soul and Random Frivolities

Romance in Four Acts

My brain rattles, but it never comes out. A bee's nest. I try to cry, try to squeeze out what little is left, but I just hear a dry rasp. I should reach out, say a word, but I just can't. That's when the tears fall, when there are no words left. It feels cold. My throat froze. My eyes mottled purple. Tired but emptied. It bleeds out. Red earth. It paints the world bright so I can have a light to hold on to.

The choice I regret?

Placing the phone at the edge of the sink.

I was too impatient,

too young to know

how short life can be.

How a moment of inattention

could signify the loss of everything.

  Only after tears are spilled, and

you waste enough of your life

making up for mistakes past, that

you’ll see it. Everything around you

is a knife’s edge

waiting

to snag your beating heart.

This lesson

comes with tragedy experienced over

an infinite amount of time. You see,

I placed the phone at the edge of the sink

And I’ve carried it with me ever since. 

I’ve cried over it, replayed it, shied away from it.

Such a simple action, a brief moment

in the past. But on my mind and heart,

it has inflicted a lifetime of misery.

It’s so ingrained

to care only for those like you and not speak up for others. Telling yourself that you were in the right.

It’s so easy

to become defensive and not realize, by doing so, you are telling another Human being that your comfort is more important than their personhood.

It’s so easy

to convince yourself that your beliefs and definition of self are more important than a Human life; than the struggles of a whole group of people who differ from you.

It’s so hard

to be humble and admit that you’re wrong; to allow your beliefs to be questioned; to truly open yourself to the words and experiences of others; to redefine yourself to become a better you; to empathize, and put a face to suffering.

It’s so hard

to validate someone else’s suffering and apologize for the all the pain that willful ignorance has put them through. For all the pain our ignorance has put them through.

So please, remember

to do what is hard instead of what is easy.

Allow yourself to change,

to be changed.

And in doing so, you will find

Like a once empty sack filled with tears.

Skin so thin that as it trudges through life,

many holes will appear. Turning dust into mud;

it continues to live for the hope of surviving

metamorphosing into fulfilling. For the dead

Packing away emotions has become a special skill of mine.

I take each one, roll them into a small cylindrical shape, and place them side-by-side.

I slam down the suitcase lid and there they lay, forgotten for a while.

I go on about my day,

I listen and I’m there.

But when the day is over,

and the only sound I hear is the house breathing,

the lid pops open. All the pieces

that I have stuffed in there come flying out. They hit

my face, my heart, and stack up on my shoulders.

I become a hamper for stale emotions whose sources are long forgotten.

I guess I need a stronger latch or

I do not like that there was a you before me. I do not wish to be your whole world; that would be too much. But there are times that I wish I could blot out all else. Use my teeth and nails to rewrite your scars. Use my love and body to overwrite any romantic interests that came before me. So that you would be filled with me: heart, body, mind and soul; taste, touch, sight, and smell.

with all my love,