I’ve held something very close for as long as I can remember. Today I let it slip, a secret I did not know that I had, an omission that after I let the words slip past my lips, they seemed trapped inside my little apartment, circling me, bouncing off the walls, and forcing me to further interpret their true weight.
“I have never really let anyone in, not truly”.
If this is true, then what the hell have I been doing all these years? As an admitted proud fool, I am sure what I hold close is something that I fear people knowing could allow them to use this to hurt me, still, I cannot think of a precise thing, as if there is a secret buried somewhere so deep I am not aware of it.
Laying in the darkness the words still swirl “not truly” my hair spread messily over the pillow, I’m on my back, hands clasped across my chest. Eyes shut, feeling my breaths deep in my chest….still the words and other words, smashing against me, ripping me and painting the walls a new color of blood, is it defeat? Is that how I should feel knowing that nobody really knows me? I certainly do not feel good about it, I have always tried to be true, honest, and bold, as a friend, as a lover, as a sister and daughter.
The truth is for a long time now I really don’t feel much, as I write this I am crying, it’s odd though, I am crying because of the ways and things that I do not feel. Perhaps that is the secret, that part of me died when my mother died, part of me died when he cheated when she decided she no longer wanted to be my friend when I decided I no longer wanted to be his when they left when they came back. I have had a lovely life, I am blessed and privileged but what if my little heart and soul just can no longer take any more heartbreak, so it has shut down, closed, and is merely operating on a giving basis and to keep me alive.
A few blinks and I’m back in time to a boy I was sleeping with in my 30’s. I did not like him anymore, his serpent ways had finally come to light but there I was, letting him cover me in kisses and sweat; I recall crying and having no will to just leave him. I also recall him wiping the tears away from my eyes and saying “Oh Becky, you are so delicate”. I remember it made me so mad that I threw him off of me, got my things, and left, I never spoke to him again, so proud, nobody calls me ‘delicate! But it was what I needed to fuel my fire, at the time the words burned deep in me: “I deserve more”.
Back to the present, In the darkness of my room, again where the present words strangle me “not truly” what is living if your heart is frozen. While the tears stream down my face I become angry, this is unacceptable and in a swift motion I sit up in bed, wipe away the tears and brush the words away from my face. New words float in front of me, reminding me, pushing me. To keep exploring, keep being curious…keep trying to bring her back..let that fire burn like never before…
“Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate,
I am the captain of my soul”
-Invictus
