The shadows of myself I've seen in her and her and me...
I woke up in my friend's old mill flat. I am in his bed, but I know he slept in the back room. There is a note on the pillow saying he called me in sick at work, to stay in bed, and he has gone to work. Coffee is on. There is seltzer water in the fridge and home made bread to slice if I need to nurse a hang over. I stumble out of bed, lingere clinging to my form, as I pull the blanket around my shoulders. I throw open the sliding door as I watch the sun climbing up the window panes and through the earth's sheets, that are hanging across the west bank of the Deschutes, spliting through the Old Mill. The sun is painting the face on the day the way Annie puts her face on to plaster over the pain. The colors are brilliant although subtle.
I am wishing I already had the coffee when I look over at the Mayor's flat- his little miss is there. Looking very emaciated. I have no words for her- how do I put into terms the hope there is for another day? The hope that real love could exist, that there is joy beyond the rain, that she has come great lengths? I look into her stormy eyes and sigh, she looks through me.
"I gave him my soul" she whimpers.
"I know"
"Now I can't go back home" she cries.
But there are no tears. I wish I could climb the railings between our porches and take her bony, frail little frame in my arms. I wish I could breath new life into her- but one has to want to be born again. To believe in life, that it is still good.
"He is bored with me now; he will find another. I will keep the flat but I will mean nothing to him any more. My youth has slipped with its mystery and innocense. Do I look as haggard as I feel?"
As I inspect her withering ideals, I see myself in her, the way I saw myself covering up the Anorexic me at Bellatazza. As I watch her crying next to me, again I see the 17 year old me crying for the things that were taken from me at 5, at 7, at 9. And I see the 19 year old me falling in love and watching my heart break like frozen hair in a heartless child's hands. And I see the 20 year old me standing in a hulahoop of coping mechanisms, my own heart discarded like the broken bottle of vodka I threw off the porch last night. The pieces there on the sidewalk beneath us. Both of us hurting and not sure how to reconcile these ideas, these realities, with the hopeful little ideals we kept chained like the heroes of fairytales we cant believe in anymore. The Mr. Darcys have discarded their personas like Ms. Austin discarded this life. And we are left with real men, real characters, who sin and fail and make mistakes. Time and time again. And forgive them we must because they meant no harm. They fail to see the marks their hands left on our throats where they strangled our words, and the scars where their nails dug into our breasts. Our hearts only barely still in tact.
The mayor's girlfriend is only 19 or 20. But she is now the discarded slut who was his virgin. No longer useful because of misplaced novelty.
I am now the discarded virgin redeemeed of a soul who couldn't find the norm. The scars of broken bottles that chaffed my skin boil across my hands where men drug their fears into my ears; the freckled brown bit from where I tried to hang myself when I was ten, the habits of analyzing women for body fat- although they always have less than me, the habits of drinking bottles of anything that might drown the pain of what...?
of parents who couldn't protect me?
Of a sister's sick, twisted game?
Of boyfriends with sick fetishes?
Of churches that broke God's rules then covered it up?
Of pastors who promised it was God's Truth but somehow changed their minds half-way through?
Of religion that couldn't save me?
Of church friends who promised to love me forever, like Christ, but didnt know how to hold ontot that hope through the storm... let Christ be Christ next time.
Of society that pretended not to see me, or my friends who were dying too? On drugs and alcohol and sex and booze and rock and roll and diets and driving fast and anything, sweet anything... Yes, this is where and who I am now- the norm.
But we all woke up empty and alone. No matter how many people were with us.
We all still wake up in the mornings alone in friend's houses, on porches talking to strangers, watching the sunrise.
But that's just the thing... no matter how much it rains at night,
to quote hemingway: "the sun still rises" every day.
And at least we have friends who have houses where we can wake,
and for that matter, strangers who sympathize with our pain. All the while emphasizing, this agony, this guilt- sin, is a common theme. Everyone bleeds. So we are not so different when we lay our heads down. the Mr. Darcys who were not what they thought they were, the religious people who thought they lived what they believed, the drug dealers, the whores...
My self, my family, my abuser, my God, the mayor's little miss, all have felt pain, all have felt joy. All have bled. all have been born. All will die, and all will rise again. There is no thing uncommon about me- or them. there is just the beauty of learning how to sing the harmony to the tune the universe is already playing. And it is so much easier when we simply look out and recognize Christ has gone before us... and we are not alone.
I am wishing I already had the coffee when I look over at the Mayor's flat- his little miss is there. Looking very emaciated. I have no words for her- how do I put into terms the hope there is for another day? The hope that real love could exist, that there is joy beyond the rain, that she has come great lengths? I look into her stormy eyes and sigh, she looks through me.
"I gave him my soul" she whimpers.
"I know"
"Now I can't go back home" she cries.
But there are no tears. I wish I could climb the railings between our porches and take her bony, frail little frame in my arms. I wish I could breath new life into her- but one has to want to be born again. To believe in life, that it is still good.
"He is bored with me now; he will find another. I will keep the flat but I will mean nothing to him any more. My youth has slipped with its mystery and innocense. Do I look as haggard as I feel?"
As I inspect her withering ideals, I see myself in her, the way I saw myself covering up the Anorexic me at Bellatazza. As I watch her crying next to me, again I see the 17 year old me crying for the things that were taken from me at 5, at 7, at 9. And I see the 19 year old me falling in love and watching my heart break like frozen hair in a heartless child's hands. And I see the 20 year old me standing in a hulahoop of coping mechanisms, my own heart discarded like the broken bottle of vodka I threw off the porch last night. The pieces there on the sidewalk beneath us. Both of us hurting and not sure how to reconcile these ideas, these realities, with the hopeful little ideals we kept chained like the heroes of fairytales we cant believe in anymore. The Mr. Darcys have discarded their personas like Ms. Austin discarded this life. And we are left with real men, real characters, who sin and fail and make mistakes. Time and time again. And forgive them we must because they meant no harm. They fail to see the marks their hands left on our throats where they strangled our words, and the scars where their nails dug into our breasts. Our hearts only barely still in tact.
The mayor's girlfriend is only 19 or 20. But she is now the discarded slut who was his virgin. No longer useful because of misplaced novelty.
I am now the discarded virgin redeemeed of a soul who couldn't find the norm. The scars of broken bottles that chaffed my skin boil across my hands where men drug their fears into my ears; the freckled brown bit from where I tried to hang myself when I was ten, the habits of analyzing women for body fat- although they always have less than me, the habits of drinking bottles of anything that might drown the pain of what...?
of parents who couldn't protect me?
Of a sister's sick, twisted game?
Of boyfriends with sick fetishes?
Of churches that broke God's rules then covered it up?
Of pastors who promised it was God's Truth but somehow changed their minds half-way through?
Of religion that couldn't save me?
Of church friends who promised to love me forever, like Christ, but didnt know how to hold ontot that hope through the storm... let Christ be Christ next time.
Of society that pretended not to see me, or my friends who were dying too? On drugs and alcohol and sex and booze and rock and roll and diets and driving fast and anything, sweet anything... Yes, this is where and who I am now- the norm.
But we all woke up empty and alone. No matter how many people were with us.
We all still wake up in the mornings alone in friend's houses, on porches talking to strangers, watching the sunrise.
But that's just the thing... no matter how much it rains at night,
to quote hemingway: "the sun still rises" every day.
And at least we have friends who have houses where we can wake,
and for that matter, strangers who sympathize with our pain. All the while emphasizing, this agony, this guilt- sin, is a common theme. Everyone bleeds. So we are not so different when we lay our heads down. the Mr. Darcys who were not what they thought they were, the religious people who thought they lived what they believed, the drug dealers, the whores...
My self, my family, my abuser, my God, the mayor's little miss, all have felt pain, all have felt joy. All have bled. all have been born. All will die, and all will rise again. There is no thing uncommon about me- or them. there is just the beauty of learning how to sing the harmony to the tune the universe is already playing. And it is so much easier when we simply look out and recognize Christ has gone before us... and we are not alone.