Untangle me

His words burned like poison on an open wound. Yet I continue to take the blame for the way I was scorned. I accepted those words, embraced them as if they were created then and there to describe me. I was the creator of those foul names, I gave them meaning. I was their meaning. Sometimes, when we bring it up, I remember that I am nothing more than the sum of those words and the way they made me feel. But I have nobody to blame but myself. That should have been my key to walk away and never turn back, to realize that I am worth more than a few drunken words piled on the ground. Leaving had been my intention all along, hadn’t it been? Was that not what I was planning to do in the first place? This event should only have made it easier; yet for some reason after such a vile confrontation, leaving no longer seemed like an option. 
          That day haunts me, second to only one. I replay it over and over in my head and I listen to the anger in his voice as he laughs and spits at me. Still I felt cruel and vicious, that I somehow caused this unbearable outburst, and in turn was deserving of the pain bubbling in the pit of my stomach threatening to emerge as vomit in a fit of guilt. Only lately have I stopped justifying his actions, justifying his anger with praises and assumptions that it was merely a one-time thing. Only recently have I removed my remorse and started to wonder if I can truly continue to live in fear of a man who proved himself capable of such aggression. If an apology which seems so shallow is really worth my forgiveness at all. Or if perhaps, I should end things the way they would have if I had never looked back.

It was Valentines day. There are places ones mind should be at on such an occasion; still your distraction was impossible to avoid. I miss you, you know? I miss you more now than I did before and still I wonder if my reasons are honest or if I miss you for something less genuine. I won’t know. I feel for you now in ways I neglected to feel for you prior to the news. I feel for you with my soul and with my body as if the evidence of your crime is embedded in me, silent and inactive. Waiting only to emerge when I finally feel okay. I worry that you never had the chance to feel okay. I wonder more if ever you even could have. I know that this couldn’t have been the only time, it never only happens once.  I wish you would have shared your story, too often do they go untold. But perhaps you felt the way I feel, that silence is the sweetest remedy. Perhaps your words could have saved you. Perhaps they would have destroyed you sooner.

They say that time heals all wounds, but I know better.

My mother told me she was going somewhere beautiful. Somewhere where nobody was ever sad, where it never rained and where you could play games all day and you never get sent to your room. She told me that where she was going she would never have to take baths, even if she spent all day jumping in mud puddles. And all the cakes were chocolate with chocolate icing. It was a place where nobody ever got sick and the days never ended too soon. She told me that where she was going she could dance for hours and her feet would never get sore. My mom told me she was going to a place where everyone was always smiling, and kitties stayed cute and cuddly forever. She promised me it was always summer there and she could spend all day at the beach making mud pies and sand castles. And when I asked if she would miss me she said she’d always be near. But I haven’t seen her since Saturday and I’m starting to worry she’s gotten lost. So I’m packing up all my toys in my backpack and I’m going to look for Heaven.

I looked through every photograph of you today. I stared until my eyes grew red and sore. And I missed you, but I’m with you (I am with you aren’t I?). I saw you smiling, and I wondered what she made you feel while you were holding her. Looking at her longingly while she laughed. Looking at her lovingly while she laid her head on your chest. I wonder if your eyes meet me in such a way when I’m not looking. I wonder more if your eyes meet her in such a way when I’m not looking. I can’t stop looking. Photographs showcasing violently, obnoxiously your fingers intertwined. I hated her quietly from behind the screen. Hated her boldness as I hid from the eyes of the world. Just as I hid my eyes from yours last night, as you kissed me on my forehead. And I didn’t believe you. I don’t believe you. How could I believe you? How could I believe you when my monitor is whispering agonizing images of the lips you once kissed. The eyes you once made bleed. And I scrub the makeup from my face to look in the mirror at my uneven complexion. At the pouty lips you just kissed. And at the boring brown eyes that so easily bleed.

I looked through every photograph you have together, and I realized instantly that I am no better. I just came after.

I’m alone today, just as I have been on this day for the past four years. Perhaps I will be alone on this day for the rest of my life. Perhaps by chance I will die on this day. Perhaps a terrible tragedy will bring me to my death on a future September 23rd. Perhaps it won’t be a tragedy at all. Perhaps these revisiting memories of this day will haunt me until my very last breath. Or even perhaps, come another anniversary, I will finally find myself alive.

All I can do is hope for the latter.

     I sat down in my living room this morning, while the house was quiet and hollow and I thought of all the things you’ve done to hurt me. The way a single action could haunt my entire life, and what I thought would kill me once has returned countless times to steal the breath from my lungs. The tears seem to come from a bottomless well. A well where the walls are slippery, coated thickly with slime and mold. And I am drowning. Trying constantly to dig my fingers into the cracks between the cement blocks so I can climb to the surface and breathe. Every time I find a foothold I slip. I’ve been drowning for four years in this bleak, dank jail cell. Four years and still I bleed. The water rosy from my estranged wounds, untreated they will drain until all the water is gone and I lay, nothing but a vacuous carcass in a pool of purple blood.

I can feel autumn creeping up on me like the spiders in my cellar.
The smell is undeniable, stove-tops and spices.The cool wind nips at my bare toes, piercing my skin and working it’s way through my veins up to the very tip of my nose. leaving it rosy and numb. And I force my farewells to my rooftop, and the grass stains on my jeans. Knowing that whatever trace of summer romance still lingering in my grasp will soon vanish with the well lit late nights and the long talks in those rocking chairs on your mothers front porch. The days when the coziness of your arms was enough to shelter my bare legs from the cold of the night are now slowly coming to an end. And I find myself shivering regardless of how tightly you hold me. Shivering almost enough to wiggle away. But not quite.

And as nostalgic as summer is already beginning to feel I can do nothing but embrace these autumn winds. Remembering that with fall comes knit sweaters, leg warmers and chai tea. Comes a different kind of cozy and a different kind of warm. And just as every summers close comes with sadness I can do nothing but look back on those four months with a smile. Knowing that I have lived more in those seemingly never-ending nights than I have in all the years before.

     I drape my loose fitting uniform over my body, and whip my hair in to a messy bun. I don’t even bother to wipe off my days makeup before slinging my bag over my shoulder and dashing out the door. it smells of barbecues and fresh cut lawns, the way softball season always smells. Fourteen years of playing ball and it’s always smelled the same. I wait for it every year, for the snow to dry up and leave the air smelling fresh and damp. We rake the orange shale of the diamond until it is a soft cushion for sliding; and even though there are traces of snow still lingering in the outfield we waste no time starting our season.

    After my knee surgery last year I sat an entire season on the bench. Watching my team flourish and triumph despite my absence. Keeping stats I knew everyone strengths, I knew everyone’s weaknesses and I knew who was at the top and who was at the bottom. Not that it ever mattered for us. We’re family. Being the summer just before everyone was headed away to university we had lost a few players, players who I had grown up with, girls who had been on this team since they were four years old. I don’t know why I had thought that we would grow old together, well into our forties, fifties even playing beer league and laughing over childhood memories.

     But with this year came reality. A reality that had always been there, hiding in the back of my mind but never showing itself until now. And I knew that with time and age eventually everything would be different. And the years we had all spent together would be nothing but memories held together by old photographs and that undying love for the game embedded in us all. I loved the way that summer could undoubtedly bring us all back together as if we had never been apart. After Ball season every year we went our separate ways but come March the twelve of us we’re best friends again. Funny how that works sometimes. I’ve never been afraid of losing them until now. Until this exact moment. Those girls were static in my life, something consistent something I could rely on.

     I’m not sure I’ll ever find something so perfect, something that will make me as happy as I have been. Somewhere I can feel at home. I’m not sure anything like that exists anymore.

     For now I’ll take comfort in our remaining players and make new friends with the girls we’ve picked up. For now I’ll do as I always have and take the field with pride and determination. I know who I am on this team, most of the time I only know who I am because of this team. I’m not going to let go of that anytime soon. And as Summer fades to fall I’ll let another year grow between us. As it’s all I know how to do. But come March I know that I can count on a few familar smiling faces ready to pick up where we left off. And that will always be good enough for me.

Though the shingles are growing feeble and I can feel the ground sink underneath my footsteps I am safe here. I am home.

You have hurt me in indescribable ways. Ways that keep me up at night.

I don’t regret saying I wish you never came home. I miss when my business was my business and I could feel comfortable and safe in my own home. I miss when I could close my bedroom door and it would stay closed until the next time I entered. I miss when my things were my things, and everyone just left them alone. But mostly I miss the 8 months you were away when nobody in this house ever fought, we had nothing to fight about while you were gone. We were happy.

I remember sneaking out of my bedroom window and scaling down the side of my house to meet you in our usual meeting place out front. I caught my sleeve on a tree branch and I ripped the sleeve of my brand new burgundy sweater. I stood to admire the tear only a minute before dashing through my gate and diving into the passenger seat of your car. You drove us to the entrance of the golf course you worked at. You winked at me and we squeezed between the metal fence into private property. It had rained all day and the green was a swamp but you refused to use the footpath. I remember the way my toes grew numb as the water seeped through my TOMS turning my sockless feet to prunes, but I wouldn’t say I was cold. I loved just being with you. You didn’t love me then. But you held my hand as we leaped through puddles, and you kissed me anyways because you knew I would let you. You didn’t love me then, and I should have known better.

This will never work.
And I’m sad because for once I am actually happy.
How silly does that sound..