How Close

How close we mingle
Love and hate;
Need and rape.
I think mostly you
Are good to me
But I cannot trust
My mind and how
Closely it mingles
Love and hate
And need and rape.

History has made sex
A dark depraved thing
Echoed by drunken nights
And men who didn't care
When I cried.
I think you'd care,
But I don't cry
For such things anymore;
For love or hate
Or need or rape.

<3 p="">

Addictions

Addictions suburban edition: Wine for him, razorblades for her.

One Year Ago

One year ago I felt lost and hopeless. I despaired. Six months ago I decided I could not go on living anymore, convinced I was destroying my family.  I am better today, but I have not yet found the words for all that went on between then and now. For the six days I spent in the hospital. For the days weeks and months of therapy since then. Each time I sit down to write I feel a void, and a blank.  Maybe all that transpired is just not meant to be put into words.  Maybe I just start fresh with where I am now, in the arms of the God of comfort, working my way back to who I am in Him. Maybe eventually that time will have a voice. I don't know.  While I am tempted to delete my blog posts that reveal my struggles, I realize that good or bad, it is part of my story. And so it stays.  And I move forward.

American Dream

I see you living your Facebook Clean

American Dream

So patriotic, happy and free

But I’m living in a prison

in my own head

making sense of what you did to me.

Broken

Last night we talked for a long time. I learned that my depression is the cause of all of this.  I was hurting him without even knowing.  This hit me so hard.  I am broken. I don't want to live a life of hurting people.

Touch

We have touched each other more since declaring divorce than in our entire marriage, it seems.  We are still in this house together, and as such we are each other's only comfort some times.  I feel like I got so much of my grieving out of the way in the weeks before and the first few weeks after we had the talk that he is having to catch up a bit.  We are still here, together, breaking each other's hearts every day and then trying to touch away the pain at night.  He wants to know why we didn't do more when we were trying to keep our relationship together.  My answer is that I'm not a big fan of being trapped in someone's arms, and he never came to bed anyway.

The first night was the most intense.  I was startled and caught off guard. He wrapped his arms around me and and stroked my hair and my arms with such intensity I wondered if maybe he had decided that the only answer to all this was to snap my neck.  It felt that foreign to me.  I didn't really think he would, but it felt like a possibility. But soon the tears flowed from my eyes too, as I know these touches were numbered.  I knew I had to memorize the smell of his neck, the texture of his thumbs, and the patterns of his breathing.  He wept as he traced the scars on my wrists; the evidence of so much desperation. Someday all this would feel so distant. Would I remember what it was like?   Confusion set in, as I knew I felt so much love for this man. I questioned everything we were going through. How could it be right if this felt so good.  But through my tears I reminded myself that these moments we were having were not representative of real life.  That they came too late.  That if he had shown me this need for me sooner we wouldn't be here right now, and that I had begged and pleaded for such attentions. I begged and pleaded for simple eye contact and a good  morning as he started his day.  I lay in bed at night for 11 years wishing I had married someone who wanted to come to bed with me. Who would want to sit on the couch with me and share tickles and snuggles. Who would want to hold my hand, and convey more feeling than obligation.  Someone who could be my best friend. The person who cared about my day. Who asked because he wanted to know about my day, not because in some fight I had begged him to acknowledge my existance.  Someone who would not greet the kids and dogs each time he passed and act as if I did not exist.

I think he very literally went for at least a year without ever even saying my name.  Calling out to me. Why would he ever do that?  And these memories assured me that despite all this pain, despite how good it felt to hold each other, we would never be ok together. We could never be healthy together. And so we wept, and squeezed each other, traced cheekbones and hands and whiskers.  And eventually we slept, on wet pillows, and woke with sad and tired eyes.  But each day it feels a little less. A little better. A little closer. The heartbreak doesn't go away, it just finds itself a more permanent fit in the spaces of my heart and mind. A corner to hang out that is not so blinding.  Now I wonder if maybe I didn't chase his affections away as I remember that having someones arms around me for more than a short time begins to make me feel like a prisoner. Or maybe that's just something that goes away when you are with the right person.  As each minute passes my need to escape feels like a vibration that grows.  Like Flash when he holds his hand against a piece of glass and vibrates so hard and fast that the glass shatters. My mind vibrates harder and harder against its confines until in my mind I burst out, and in reality I move and end the moment by hurting his feelings.

This is right. This is what needs to happen. I need to be free, and he needs someone who doesn't actually need him.  This is right. This is what needs to happen.

Delivery

I don't mean to be blunt but I am. I wish I knew how to fix it. Timing all wrong, but when the message is don't be drunk around your kids I have a hard time backing down. Igh. This shit sucks.

Heartbreak

I had no idea there was any more of my heart to break, or that it would be I to break it, by hurting the one I am letting go.

From Ash

Heartbreak and relief all in one breath. I wish this on no one, but I know so many have gone before and made it through better and stronger. The life we know is gone, but a new one with different blessings awaits. I will lose many comforts, but new more important things will take their place. I will cry and mourn, and smile and laugh, and on the other side I will find some day in the future that I am whole once again. Changed. Morphed. Maybe even scarred. But tougher. Happier. And free to start again, this time holding on to who I am and becoming who I was always meant to be. I have few regrets, because even in the ashes I can see so much beauty that was given to me as lavish gifts in the middle of storms. My children for one.

Floor

I can't even put one foot in front of the other right now. I can't stand up without the tears flowing. So I'm here in the tiny WC in my bathroom. Door locked. Excuses made to the children. I find calm but each time I think of standing up and opening the door a wave of tears overcomes me. This is pathetic. But this is where I am.

I asked for a divorce.  He agreed, yet we are still in the same house and bed weeks later. I ask him to leave and it breaks my heart. He says no and it breaks my heart.  Friends and family say do this and that. He says no. And so I make no one happy. I have no backbone, and I don't even have enough sense to make my own decisions about all this. About life in general. So here I am. Ashamed and weak. In the bathroom. Blogging from my phone about the fact that I have no idea how I will stand up and walk out of here and face life and people at some point. And what I will do from there.

Today

Today I feel like a grownup for the first time in a long time... or maybe ever.  Today I stop allowing myself to be convinced that I am weak and broken and not in control of my life and destiny.  Today with a lot of prayer and so many people at my side, I am taking ownership of my future and standing up to take responsibility for doing what is right and what is best. I will not be walked on, deceived or manipulated any more. 

Crumble

Standing side by side
We watch each other fall
Like statues aged with grief.
Slowly we carve pieces,
Down to the bone,
Offerings to the courts
Recompense for
irreconcilable differences.
Slow death by divorce,
But we were killing each other
Anyway.

Scars

You touched my scars with yours
Showed me your pain, so like mine
And for a moment I was in your world.
I could have kissed you then
Held your face in my hands,
Roamed around the planes of your skin
Made your world mine.
Oh how I wanted to make you mine
For the moment,
But a moment is all I have to give
And then I'd just be another scar.

From the moment I met you,
I found it my goal to see you smile.
A smile so beautiful through your scars.
I could have kissed you then
Held your face in my hands,
Roamed around the planes of your skin
Made your world mine.
I so ached to make you mine
For the moment,
But a moment is all I have to give,
And then I'd just be another,
Another set of scars.