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swampgallows · 6 years

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i just woke up, it’s close to noon here, five hours is good enough i guess. i keep thinking about college and how fucking suicidally depressed i was then and how ive spent half of this year being unemployed and generally just struggling to take care of myself in the most banal and basic ways possible, and how depression really does just delete years from your life. you live through them in a daze, you’re already a ghost, you’re already dead. questing in wrath of the lich king is honestly some of the last shit i remember concretely before going into a two year gray area of passing my classes and nothing else. i remember breaking up with my boyfriend because he chose raiding over me. i dont want to talk about it again. the memory is still painful. still, even still, ten years later. and in late 2008 i was attacked in my dorm room and i was screaming and my roommates thought i was being a big ol slut. they thought any guy that came over was someone i was fucking. when i went to blizzcon in 2008 and my brother stayed in my dorm they thought i was fucking him too until i told them he was my little brother. they tried so fucking hard to suppress my interests and make me “like them”. “there’s more to life than world of warcraft and pokemon” they said as if going to college basketball games and rewatching disney movies has any more enrichment or depth beyond what i was fucking doing. my life is so full of hatred, from myself, from other people, just being fostered in me in general, and it’s only within the last few years that i’ve gotten to heal from it at all, all the time being hurt more and more

i was talking to a friend yesterday who is just 19 and thinking about where i was when i was 19, which of course puts me in 2009 again, the year i dropped out of existence, and i was telling them about how i was essentially raised by the ilk of 4chan and the piece of shit community on wow that, like, since i’m around ~liberal genderqueer~ tumblr-type spaces all the time, genuinely shocks me to remember still exists, of those fucking hypermasculine overcompensating military dudes. and we were talking about how like, nerds in general tend to have shit social skills or anxiety or are Othered in ways that have them reinforce this piece of shit pecking order where the loudest and meanest proclaim themselves the Leader and everyone just follows them because theyre too meek to challenge them or they mistake arrogance for confidence and assume any asshole crowing that loud about how Right they are all the time Must Be Right.

and i thought of my own life, my ex QP, my old friend groups, my abusive ex boyfriend, how i mistook so long their malice as strength, how i was duped by their self-aggrandizement. they had no skills, no talents, no girlfriend (except when i dated them), no women in their lives in general, no real friends they could count on (except, for my abuser, an older man with 3 children and a brand new divorce whose house he muscled and manipulated himself into—”i cant even bear to be in the old master bedroom anymore”—and my abuser promptly MOVED HIMSELF INTO IT) no hobbies, and the one or two hobbies that they had—fishing, video games—they were fucking less-than-passable at. my ex-qp wasn’t good at video games. he would use cheat codes or just play the strongest character and rely on everyone else to pick up his slack. warrior, carry, tank, what have you; all of us his underlings to support him to victory—”I’m doing all of the damage and getting none of the kills”—he would whine, oblivious to the concept of teamwork and seeking credit within the only realm he had a semblance of succeeding in.

anyway so when i first joined tumblr i swung the pendulum in the other direction because i absolutely had to, it was for my survival to become a virulent feminazi as they put it, and i was obnoxious about it, and i reposted rape statistics all the time and challenged people all the time because i had to. i had to let it overtake me in order to purge all of the 10+ years of toxic social conditioning that places like 4chan and their little infestations in WoW and all of my abusive partners instilled in me. i had to be vocal about rape this and sexual assault that because i spent the better part of my adolescence trying to laugh away the fact that i was raped as a child, trying to make jokes about my “delicious flat chest” and pedobear and “surprise buttsecks/it’s not rape if you yell surprise” and “delicious loli”; some of the images i had willingly saved on my ancient hard drive are absolutely harrowing to go through now as an adult knowing my mushy impressionable 14 year old traumatized mind was trying to cope with and gloss over what had happened to me and with the future i was facing as a budding adolescent in this kind of environment. men didnt want to be responsible for what happened to me or with what would happen to me, it made them uncomfortable for me to talk about it, so i was told to laugh it away, that nobody cares that i was raped, that i was stronger if i could just laugh about it, that no topics were beyond reproach or off limits, and that if i wasnt desensitized to my own suffering then i was weak, i was a sheep, i was a burden, i was letting my emotions get the better of me.

obviously, tumblr as a whole DIRECTLY acts in opposition of this: everything is rooted in our traumas, which we are expected to lay bare for all to be taken seriously: 4chan demanded that we invalidate the trauma by making a joke of it and allowing the masses to pick it apart for their own entertainment, to become part of the anonymous “legion” by offering up our individuality to be consumed by the group (as a currency of “lulz”, basically); tumblr, reflexively, demands we validate the trauma by making it an open and public integral asset to our identity, to have easily digestible and categorized characteristics so as to fit into the tumblr hierarchy of needs, their own misinterpreted facsimile and microcosm of existing systematic oppression, and obtain a sort of fixed currency of privilege or “woke points” dependent on identity politics. so i definitely needed to purge my previous conditioning with this reclamation of my identity as a survivor, etc, and had about 7 years of misplaced anger and fury condensed into a good two or so years instead, and even now im still parsing details.

it wasnt until i was 22 that i had even heard the term asexuality and it wasnt until i was 25 that i realized i was bi (or “could be” bi), even though i had already been in love with and sexually active with women years prior lmao. i had been told by every possible source that having a dick inside me would change my life and change my outlook and change me into a better person or whatever the fuck, that i would “understand” and “grow up” and “become a woman” or whatever and guess what it did fucking NOTHING, just like every teen drama romance or whatever tries to stress over and over, sex is not a magical lifechanging event that hands you a million dollars and a healthy brain. it changes your life in some ways and it’s definitely not something to be taken lightly but in no way is it a cure for anything.

i dont know where i’m going with this, im just fucking pissed off about my life, im pissed off that healing takes so long and that i had to do any of it in the first place. im so pissed about all of my time wasted with this fucking piece of shit body and fucking piece of shit brain and i wish i could just go back to work and be a functional human being but im like just a short leap away from doing any of that. i have to get in touch w my previous HMO once the new year starts now that im confirmed for medi-cal, and i should have done it months ago, but i have to just accept that this whole time ive been not USELESS but just utterly CONSUMED by self-preservation, that it is taking most of my effort to want to be alive and stay on this planet any longer. especially now with my teeth bugging me so bad because i cant fucking take care of myself so im grinding my teeth and clenching my jaw and i guess eating improperly or what have you idont fucking know. im going to buy a waterpik even though it’s fifty dollars and i have not made ANY MONEY in the last 6 months or done ANY of what i wanted to do and i still have a number of commissions needling at me that i genuinely like cant fucking even look at withotu fucking hitting myself and crying, and im seriously not trying to make fucking excuses, i am so fucking ashamed and consumed by self-hatred about this, this has been a problem for me SINCE COLLEGE where i was an ART MAJOR that i had to fucking beat the shit out of myself to try to draw anything “seriously”, and i do mean literally beating myself, bludgeoning myself with my morris sticks and smacking myself in the face/head and clawing at my skin, and i fucking hate it

i just know i need like SO MUCH recovery or healing or whatever the fuck, i feel so long overdue for very basic shit, and part of me feels like a withering plant, like pouring water over dry leaves thinking it’s just going to saturate itself and be instantly rejuvenated. im losing leaves in the process, as it were, and getting no “water” all this time. i feel like i’m in drought mode. these last six months are me basically conserving all i have, toeing away from the edge of the cliff because iw as so ready yall i was so fucking ready, i was ready to jump off, i spent whole lunch hours just ready to fucking leap, staring down the void, staring at the winding road that went up the mountain, staring at the deer who stared back at me, hiding my face from Adults who treated me like a wind-up doll, i just couldnt take it, ic ouldnt be somewhere that sterile, i couldnt be spending so much of my life getting so little back, i coudlnt see my friends ever, i couldnt breathe, but in general my brain is sick and i need to heal from all of these things, i need to figure out how i can cope with being alive because i am going to be alive at least a little longer and i need to not fear and crave death simultaneously. i do not want to die, I DO NOT want to die, but i cannot live in a constant state of recuperating. my life has just felt like the Shutting Down... screen for the last 2 years.

NEED a new dentist NEED my teeth fixed PLEASE GOD open the stem cell dentin treatment to clinics worldwide GOD fix my TEETH PLEASE let me REGROW my TEETH NEED therapy NEED to fix my brain NEED to figure out how i can cope with being unable to support myself in this shit fucking economy NEED TO RECOVER NEED TO GET BETTER PLEASE IM FUCKING SUFFERING

#blathering

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rhondaadorno · 4 years

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Above and Below

“Empathy is not simply a matter of trying to imagine what others are going through, but having the will to muster enough courage to do something about it. In a way, empathy is predicated upon hope.” ― Cornel West

I am back with another harrowing excavation into my soul--where all my parts are uncovered, and I rebel against the inclination to flee from the me I don’t want you to see.

But, I’m narrowly sure this is the right thing to do, for my mental health, and for the bettering of us.

I spoke to you about the past before, and now, under this glowing moon we share, I will write about the undressed present.

Decompression Sickness

We’re all in a fluster. All of us. Our own internal pandemic is happening and every Facebook post and Instagram story is vouching for the vaccine to cure us all.

We are overwhelmed. I am overwhelmed.

Actually, at this very moment, I feel like my chest is being crushed. I was going to escape by retiring to bed, but what’s a good night’s rest going for these days, anyway?

Have any of us ever really had one since January 1st?

I think I feel this way because I am abruptly being purged of 30 plus years of silent pain, in addition to what I also carried from my mother’s pain, and the transcendent knowledge of my grandmother’s pain, and the ubiquitous pain of black mothers on high alert for their children everyday, along with the paranoia of that police car surreptitiously switching lanes behind me the other day-- the PTSD of being pinned down by 4 white cops inside my own home, really.

Decompression sickness. What a scuba diver feels if they ascend too quickly.

All of the stifled and silenced things are suddenly bobbing without any anchor above the surface, eerily as if they had a face. All of it, just snatched out of me at a dizzying speed, and my body is in a state of havoc.

Someone once said to me, the anvil on your foot is a definite pain to bear, but once you remove the anvil, that’s when the real pain shows up because now you ache and throb from somewhere deep and untraceable.

Palace Under the Sea

When my first born, Hannah, passed away from Trisomy 18 in 2008, I remember having the same feeling -- my faculties in working order, but my mind shutting down, while everyone around me worked in a fever pitch to make the world right again. I lost my ability to speak for a while, maybe a day or a week, and even though I may have spoken to people, I wasn’t tethered to the words; I had slipped away into a place that hummed.

Distinctly, I remember imagining I had sunk to the bottom of the sea, and sat on its floor, holding my breath, looking up while everyone strained their necks to see if I was okay. I went to this place because of its hum; it allowed everything to become muffled and distorted, claws no longer clawing requiring nothing of me. I felt surrounded by liquid steel feigning the same protection as a cold war bomb shelter.

I’m here now, in this palace under the sea, undulations unto undulations.

I am in fluid distress which I describe as cognitive euphoria, functioning depression, acute anger, rippling hurt, and pitched caution. Many of my black sisters and brothers may be feeling the same, or not; maybe they are on an extreme end, which is their right. I just know I am not okay.

Passion and Platform

Here is why. The world, our colleagues, our closest friends, whose baby showers we’ve attended, whose surprise parties we’ve planned, whose homes we’ve visited, and whose joys we’ve shared, have not reached out about this part of our fiercely guarded selves ever, even though slavery (all by itself) is just a grandmother away.

If they didn’t know about the cop sanctioned killings, they knew about that, and didn’t think it had any impact on us as human beings. Where did they think it went, our history, our story?

Hear me. This is my LIFE, not a click happy cause.

I just realized what I have been doing for 2 decades at minimum, what I have been able to do for all these years. To not have had some kind of dissociative break is testament of the strength of my people, but seriously, no one needs to be that strong.

I know the first thing we say to people in crisis is that we “cannot imagine” in order to relate our deep abiding sentiment, but the black community does not need anyone to imagine it, nor have we ever wished such horrible imaginations of our experience upon any race.

In all sincerity, we would like you to pick an area that resonates with your passion and platform, learn about what’s wrong, and start there.

For example, if you are a teacher, and you haven't already gone to Goodreads and changed 2 of your 3 classroom novels to reflect voices from people of color, it's a case for ambivalence. If you haven’t sat with yourself and asked how you played a role, it’s a case for culpability. If you’ve said nothing to your children’s friends’ mother who is black; it’s an affront. If you are a marketing director, and you haven’t scrubbed your company's latest campaign in favor of the culturally diverse world we live in, it's a case for indifference. If you are an influencer, and you have yet to use your platform to bring attention to your followers, it is a commitment to racism.

Not knowing where to start cannot become another insult to justice. Choosing to work through personal blindness and present discomfort is the only wholehearted statement the black community really wants to hear, and will respect.

3 Phases of Trauma

So many people couldn’t handle quarantine and wanted to wield weapons of irredeemable violence because Target and Starbucks were closed. They felt like governors were stepping on their rights to be free citizens, so they could get back to normal and shop.

What a privilege.

Except for this earthquake that simultaneously was this man’s stolen life and his revelatory gift to humanity, not a thing would have been different.

Respectfully, there's not a whole lot the black community can give in response to the amazing support we are seeing. I’m being honest. When you look at us for approval or some proverbial pat on the back or look to the one black person in your social circle to instantly become the expert on race relations, it's a big presumptive ask. It's an ask that should be handled with care.

Because we are a community yes, but the black person you know within your network, whom you have instant access to and is graciously helping you see for the first time, she is an individual person currently living in at least one of the 3 phases of trauma.

We are willing and committed to offering insight and perspective, but emphatically cannot become priest, therapist, professor, best friend, resource director, leader of a movement to make this burden easier for our white friends and family. It would be full circle for us, you see, expecting that we do the work for you. You have to do the work. You have to sweat, you have to push in, you have to be uncomfortable.

Or you don’t. This is coming to terms with your identity, and your beliefs about people of color.

Pressure Cookers of Society

We’ve already put our thoughts and feelings down on paper. They are neatly categorized in the library of congress. You really can’t go wrong. Amazon has, no doubt, curated a list of resources by now. TedTalk, no doubt, has organized its list of powerful black voices by now. YouTube is troubled waters, but there are assuredly phenomenal playlists which, by now, are advertised across social media. Make no mistake, black people are a highly educated group with keen intelligence, and our literature, our stories have led to groundbreaking change and progressive cures to overt racism, and now systemic racism. And it scares people. Take my word for it.

I keep feeling like I should respond to this universal question: Why the outrage? Why the violence?

Go to the altar of your god, and offer up your set of circumstances for mine. That instantaneous volt of paralysis you just felt, as much as you may respect, love, know, and care for me and my family, that is why. I wouldn’t trade my life for yours too. Because despite my lifelong hardships, I can see this world for what it is, and it has made me brilliant, it’s made me prismatic.

There is no shock; there is no mystery and no veil to hide behind; we are all aware, and have been aware; the offer would not be made because simply, there’s too much to lose.

However, the amplified narrative of the world, which we have had enough of, has always been that we don’t have a soul, thereby, our loss is not felt, it is inconsequential.

I am sorry that this is a rude awakening for my white friends; I understand the trouble. But I have lived so close to you and among you, and tried to mention it to you tenderly. Instead, I was passed over in favor of your politics, your heritage, your beliefs, your one true religion, and all the privileges that comfort you most.

But here we are now, seeing the outrage of black friends, coworkers, family…. We are the faulty pressure cookers of society. This nation has used us for too many years and forgot to check the lockdown springs which have gotten tired from wanton abuse. Pressure cookers have a warning label. But after the first purchase, no one regards it because they just trust it to be there and serve its purpose, to be discarded or replaced if it ever acts up or doesn’t work right. Mistake. A neglected pressure cooker can burn down your house.

The Truth Is

We’ve been doing our friends and colleagues a tremendous favor by keeping it all pushed down inside of us. But society took advantage of that kindness, that peace, that decision to let it go, that above-board response to the deplorable condition of the white psyche that even punishes dignity.

But now it’s coming up and out; it's messy, out of control, and dangerous to precious constructs long held and even memorialized. Closet white supremacists and raging racists are losing a grip because officially, for the first time, in a long time, they don't know who specializes in black management.

That is why there is so much hostility and anger towards those black looters if you didn’t know why you were so enraged by what you’ve seen. After doing away with slavery and Jim Crow, and the cops who kill, who is going to specialize in black management? Make America feel safe from its own sins?

I have lived it every single day of my life--personally managing my range of emotions because I know how important black management is to this country. If I get too angry, even as a mother because a white 4th grader calls my child a b*** in school, I have to withhold, because I have to ensure no one feels threatened by me. I must tend to other people’s feelings instead of my own child’s. This is the kind of mental slavery that, on bad days, can rival physical chains.

The truth is I’m only a great grandmother removed from long prong iron collars and rusted shackles, and I know, in a heartbeat, some folks wouldn't mind revisiting that concept of order.

Is it ludicrous to think that way? Only a person of color knows that a white man holding a Bible, at this particular time, is a weapon, an invocation for old systems of government, a signal to the superior heritage mindset that dominance, control, and subjugation will remain the law of this land. But this is America. Don’t bring that up. We’ve come so far. Not really.

“When the looting starts, the shooting starts,” 1967, Chief Walter Headley

“When the looting starts, the shooting starts,” 2020, Commander in Chief

Find Your Way

Ugliness is beginning to show. Our government does not condone this. Churches preach against this. Mom groups will not tolerate this. Book clubs will exclude this. Schools don’t want to handle this.

Once upon a time the slave owner could outright whip someone to death for this kind of revolt. The KKK could use a tree or blow up a building with three little girls inside. Today, the only single solitary option for our modernized world in rejecting this momentum is the militant order to shoot on sight, or change the law.

Surely, though, it won’t get to that point. Some think. But as much as people are fighting for justice, people in power are becoming unhinged.

I feel the hate. I feel the love. I feel the terror. I feel too much.

Today, when you think of me, or anyone who looks like me, when you organize your efforts, when you post your support, when you seek to understand, try with all your might to remember the person inside the skin, the person inside of the race... just know they aren’t ok right now, and that, given our history, it is perfectly acceptable.

I encourage you to find your way, and in finding your way, also may you say...

When you cry, I insist that my pain moans as guttural as yours.

When you cry, I insist that my hope barrels downward

to the bed of the sea, where we trade insecurity.

I have long longed for this clarity.

This permission to see

that what you bleed is the equivalent of me.

Anchored underneath, no notion to flee

We’re lulled by the waves and decidedly, free.

Emptied and lost,

found, and one.

Changed and whole

Because,

suddenly,

you drowned with me.

Pixabay photos used by permission.

#blacklivesmatter #george floyd

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schielohwolfe · 5 years

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Porcelain Cicatrix

By: Schieloh Wolfe

1999; revised (2nd Draft-2019)

(Duration: 30 minutes)

Once I stepped into the room, I sensed it was a looming chasm filled with dismal unrest. I could smell the dry, stale air uncirculated and musky with age. An eerie feeling of miasma filled my chest nearing to capacity; it choked me calmingly almost to the point of asphyxiation. As the faint began to seep in and my vision blurred, I could see a silhouetted figure in the corner. It was the only presence in the alcove other than me, quietly void of enthusiasm, but intensely interested. It stared bemused with black aphotic hyaline eyes as I fell to my knees with an uncontrolled yowl. It was an involuntarily surrender, an instant paralysis of mind and body as if disconnected from myself. I was left to watch from blank lifeless eyes, never blinking as my face slammed painstakingly against the splintered wooden floor. My sanity came under attack, and I was defenseless to stop it, trapped in a purlieu of which there was no entrance or exit. I saw blood fill the tiny crevasses between the wooden planks. A rusted screw attracted a small puddle at its base. I could hear myself breathe shallow faint breathes as the sensation of claustrophobia began to close in around me. I could not escape, nor scream, or panic. I just was… completely susceptible, along with this... figure.

It was only an apercu at first. I could make out, it, no her, ever so slightly. She seemed a sylph, dressed in old Victorian fashion faded now, but once lavished in embroidery lost in the dust that rested thickly in the depressions of the ruffles. Spider webs were attached to all things personal, binding her with the surrounding elements. She appeared to have on a petticoat, slightly visible, consistent with the time, and she seemed uncomfortably affixed in her seat. Her posture was pristine, yet slightly leaning, attempting to fight ever so slightly gravity and time. She sat still and rigid, yet completely resolute with a perfect pose. She seemed to be overcompensated by the high bodice that accentuated her upper half, exquisitely so. Her hair was a dark brown curly menagerie of random chaos carefully covered by an indigo hat veiled but slightly flipped so the face could be seen without obstruction. Her feet were nearly covered but for a small bit of black, greying as the slipper's leather dried out with the years. Her face was a pale white with a hint of ruse and faint lipstick, which revealed a very living entity behind the fictitious appearance.

Her very presence in the room made it feel avoirdupois. Her look was a splenetic trivial thing. She had this disheveled essence about her, rueful, knowingly antiquated, and out of touch. Her peering gaze created a vertiginous effect, even now motionless and staring... I felt dizzy in my own mind, unable to gain footing within my own reality. Still, she sat watching waiting. Time soon becomes a pleasant fiction, obscure, and irrelevant. My mind began to divagate into the unknown; into life, not my own. I watched people moving about seemingly to dance in their strides gracefully and appropriately eloquent for the time.

The place was a formal affair. Tapestries enriched with deep gold, light blues, and purples. Curtains rose thirty feet tied to reveal a panorama of stained glass, then beyond the windows… gardens, perfectly trimmed never-ending, overshadowed by a fountain that seemed to give life to everything around it. The people laughed relaxed but accented by a formal awareness. By the entrance, I watched a tall woman with dark curly brown hair stand with her back to me. I stood in this strange place, no longer in the room, strewn about on the floor bleeding. I approached clumsily at first, gaining balance, the feeling of walking for the first time kept things slow. As I got closer, she began to walk. I followed slowly but improved with every step. The woman had a dithyrambic bounce to her, a similar hue almost uplifting as she moved. It was breathtaking to watch as she took in the beauty around her. She would slow to take in the picturesque sights. We made our way outside past the central garden, and the pace picked up. I continued to follow her in haste. We cornered a small fountain, and there stood a man of which I could not make out a description.

Immediately she was transfixed, and her enthusiasm could be felt everywhere around her. Her love was a pure, innocent thing. It was plain to see that she saw nothing or no one but this man, although almost liminal, you could feel she had given him everything. Something was wrong, however. He had a plaint look about him. Sorrowful, but stern he began to speak in hushed whispers, and singular words would sputter uncertainly into earshot. The falling water from the fountain drowned out context. One phrase could be made with certainty, though. "I'm sorry." He walked away and, as he did, never once looked back. She stood still, dumbfounded. He headed in the direction of a woman standing afar. She appeared obviously impatient and hurried. As he met up with her, she embraced him. The hurried woman glared back and with content and indifferent look… I simply watching the tragedy of it.

What happened next was not predictable. I had seen broken hearts, known the tears, and felt the dismay, but this wasn't just a broken heart. I felt a shift in this place. This was more sinister, savage, this was raw, unchecked rage; it was her rapture. She stood unflinching, completely motionless. Suddenly the fall of water could not be heard from the fountain, for it had stopped flowing. The flowers that reached for the sun, burst into flames and bled from their thorny stems. The greenery wilted and browned seemingly to die instantly, then went ablaze. The ash soon covered everything. The heat was so intense it made breathing nearly impossible. The screams were harrowing. The people found their resting place where they once stood gracefully talking and dancing, now ash and charred bone was all that remained. This place had become an abattoir trapped in her mind. The cracking and breaking of the stained glass caught my attention, and I turned to watch the home become engulfed in a brilliant inferno, blinding as it was beautiful. It had a morbidly enticing attraction. Somehow I felt complete empathy for the woman, then fear.

She began to walk into the fire, which was all too accommodating to embellish her within its warm caress, but this was her pain, and the flames did not scorch her. Her clothes began to char slightly as the cool blue flames danced seductively on her skin, teasingly undressing her to know every part of her completely. She began to turn slowly to face me. My eyes never left hers. Her body started to solidify and became dull Pearl color. White fire chimed in and waltzed with the blue flames making her a brilliant glossy white-hued in a red light then cooling her slowly. Then, I have no engram of what happened next.

I stared at the wooden planks where I laid, but there was no longer any blood, just a powdery residue. I couldn't move but could hear a humming. The woman was no longer was sitting in the corner of the room. I was then picked up and ensconced in the same seat that she had sat. Like a simple tchotchke. I faced her. She had a toothsome alacrity, yet she was gorgeous in every way. I realized this was the first time I had really seen her. It was as if she had experienced a palingenesis of sorts. She smiled. "This, my love will be a sojourn stay, but it will pass. They say time cures all things, but there is no surcease for this leitmotif. The pain and scars are always constant reminders to never error on the side of innocence, are they not? ”They never quite leave us." She whispered to herself. "It will always be as such, won't it?"

She stepped back, and I could see her ultimately. She wore a short skirt ending well before the knees that did not suggest modesty. She wore what seemed to be a leather sleeveless top that revealed hints of tribal ink behind her arm and shoulders. The cloth of her top had been ruggedly to be blatantly suggestive; the bust was its own visually vast panoramic of awe and wonder. It would have consumed all attention if she hadn't been so captivating herself, wholely. She looked at me, then kissed my forehead, then turned to leave. I could hear the clicking of her knee-high boots as she went earshot.

I sat quietly, then noticed a small table mirror in front of me. I was wearing a garment in fashion around the Renaissance period. I think. The deep reds and browns were crisp and new. My shoes were shined, and the buckle polished. My hat tilted slightly to cover one side of my face concealing a crack that ran down my cheek below the eye and passed the neck. The other eye peered out, staring, and my head slightly cocked with curiosity. The lights turned out, and darkness came in an instant. The only thought I could remember was… "How long?" I asked myself aloud... "until the madness comes?" At that moment, a spider began to creep down from the hat, touching my face and finding my shoulder. It had attached a single strand of silk that started affix me to this place. I shuttered then grinned. I sat for a moment in the darkness then let out a scream, which became an uncontrolled laugh… all of which would fall on deaf ears, then complete silence.

(Assignment 30 mins: Define some phases of heartbreak and reconciliation- Soul Gazing Segment #9)

(Author's Note: This piece is about broken hearts, innocence, cruel acts, the time it takes to heal, the imbalance of the human psyche emotionally, and the choices we make when we are ready to love again. Sometimes though, we can't get past the pain; and unfortunately, want others to join us. Other times we wouldn't want anyone to experience what we went through.)

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