editing is a thing of the past
one morning she woke up next to him. it was summer and she was playing out yet another scene in which she was able to escape from her eating disorder, her monster-ridden introverted life in a bedroom full of insecurity and disbelief. yet the scene is not dramatic (an adjective that would encompass the next 8 years). she would not let the clothes come off nor would she lift her shirt or even unbutton pants for the fear of her lie becoming more than merely white.
her home was once her life as a child: held in strong arms of a father who would lay his life down for her laugh, under the protection of quietly over-protective brothers who held smiles back when she hugged them tightly and with proud excitement, and living up to a mother who desperately wanted her to feel capable of everything. this waking moment in an unpretentious, adequately cluttered bedroom of an 18 year old boy led her to the realization that one day in her future, she would love more deeply than that.
to want this boy with her always threatens the home she knows is stable and reliable. to want anything outside of what satisfies expectations and takes away the pain of feeling too much is nothing short of debilitating. she drinks to null the deep stomach pain of responsibility and truth. she cries to ensure she has not grown hard-hearted or lukewarm. she lives in a life that makes sense because she already tried to find him again and he barely could give her the moment or words she needed to know it would be okay to simply love - to give up the document-approved life for one that would release her of the need to continue in her bad habits and her irrational need for vodka, an empty stomach, and late-night phone calls. he broke her and she cannot help but hold on to a string that connects her to the possibility that hurts her far less.
bitterly lying awake most nights in deep thought of what may have been true (or what she did wrong), she is not sure that there was anything better than a childlike love that felt like home. if it doesn't exist, then her dream of teaching literature and one day writing about it is more than pathetic. so she has given up. fiction is only fun when the lies seem possible.
her home was once her life as a child: held in strong arms of a father who would lay his life down for her laugh, under the protection of quietly over-protective brothers who held smiles back when she hugged them tightly and with proud excitement, and living up to a mother who desperately wanted her to feel capable of everything. this waking moment in an unpretentious, adequately cluttered bedroom of an 18 year old boy led her to the realization that one day in her future, she would love more deeply than that.
to want this boy with her always threatens the home she knows is stable and reliable. to want anything outside of what satisfies expectations and takes away the pain of feeling too much is nothing short of debilitating. she drinks to null the deep stomach pain of responsibility and truth. she cries to ensure she has not grown hard-hearted or lukewarm. she lives in a life that makes sense because she already tried to find him again and he barely could give her the moment or words she needed to know it would be okay to simply love - to give up the document-approved life for one that would release her of the need to continue in her bad habits and her irrational need for vodka, an empty stomach, and late-night phone calls. he broke her and she cannot help but hold on to a string that connects her to the possibility that hurts her far less.
bitterly lying awake most nights in deep thought of what may have been true (or what she did wrong), she is not sure that there was anything better than a childlike love that felt like home. if it doesn't exist, then her dream of teaching literature and one day writing about it is more than pathetic. so she has given up. fiction is only fun when the lies seem possible.