Wednesday, April 30, 2014

Steel Wall

"All alone, or in twos,
The ones who really love you
Walk up and down outside the wall.
Some hand in hand
And some gathered together in bands.
The bleeding hearts and artists
Make their stand.
And when they've given you their all
Some stagger and fall, after all it's not easy
Banging your heart against some mad bugger's wall."







"You put up this steel wall. And it's gorgeous. Artistically it's gorgeous. But do you know how it feels on the other side? Insurmountable. You look at this amazing, beautiful, overwhelming, enormous wall and you think "I have to climb that?" "







I wear my wounds like an armour
My ex
makes the shield I hold out front

my pain is like a sword
honed by years
on the whetstone that is the memories I feed
each remembered
hurt
is like the ringing of the metal
against the stone
sharpening the edge

What confuses me
is how I keep getting hurt

This sword cuts deeply
This armour is heavy
That wall takes effort to maintain, put up.

So why isn't it keeping me safe? Unhurt?
If I'm putting all this effort
into keeping people away
men
away
so why do I keep getting hurt? Feeling deep pain?

Ahh but that's the joke, isn't it
It's my Ego that whispers in my ear that I should
shine that armour
hold firm
that shield
stab out with that sword to cut and wound and bleed them all

But it's also my Ego that's laughing behind my back
handing me cardboard cutouts
plastic swords painted carefully to shine

to make me feel safe

So I can get hurt again
and Ego
can win

over and over and over

while kind hearted friends and loved ones
stare at the wall
and I wait for Prince Charming
to slash his way through a hundred year's worth of brambles and kiss me awake

I'm not going to fight this way anymore
my dear
My Ego
my nothing

I'm not fighting you anymore

You lose
I saw through
I'll fight you now
Harder than I ever thought I could

I'll fight you now and you will cower in a corner
because you have not the strength I do

I'll make it swift
a mercy killing

but your head will dry on my walls
next to the sign that tells your cousins, your siblings, your offspring, your wraiths,
Do not bother trying.
No more.
Enough.







Mr Gorbachev. Tear down this wall.

Friday, April 25, 2014

On Discomfort (Not Pain)

Discomfort I have a hard time with.
Nausea. Cramped spaces. Ongoing pain.

I've been known to faint. Not at pain.
It wasn't the pain of getting my ears pierced that made the world go black, it was the thought of it, the idea of them making a permanent hole in my body.
Pushing into my skin and flesh with a needle that was going to pierce it.

Pierce (verb)
1. to make a hole in or through (something)
2. to go through or into (something) in a forceful or noticeable way

It wasn't the blood being drawn that made me blackout. It was watching the needle go into my skin, the steel push aside my flesh. My body wasn't supposed to look like that.

I've been known to panic in crowds. I've always managed to control it, have never “lost it”, but there comes a point when it's too much and I need out of it NOW. I need to the side now and get out of my way because I need out.

Burning Man. The frenzied circle of human flesh circling and circling the burn. Pushing each other, bodies up against each other, pushing from behind forcing me into the person in front of me and there was no room to move so I pushed back. Twice around I could still breathe, was managing the panic, but when it seemed the circle would go on forever? Another round. Never ending? I had to leave. I dropped his hand. Looked him in the eye and pushed away. Out. Not forward. But out. To where the air was.

And I was free.

We fucked later, the energy of the evening needing to rut its way out and when the boys came home on their metal horses and fucked their way to sleep, they blasted Nirvana and we fucked again. Endlessly.

Jann Arden. Free concert. Legislature. BC Day. Thousands of people. Packed streets. Again, being pushed, unable to choose my own momentum. Being pushed forward into people who also had nowhere to go and all of a sudden I needed to the side. I needed out. I needed to be able to control my own movement. I needed to breathe.

I walked away from the crowds. Backwards. Away from the flow. Free.

You can't put me on a charter flight, the seat ahead of me less than a handbreadth away from my face because then there's no oxygen. And if you do that to me when I've just spent 24 hours throwing up, and other things one does when one tried not to drink the water but must have, then the panic is that I can't get out. I can't move. I can't breathe. I am stuck on this plane, this box of metal, this tiny, small space for hours and hours and I can't lose my mind because it's not as if it'll just magically be over.

So I pull up my hair. Turn the oxygen nozzle on full blast and I try to sleep through it. Wish the gravol would work faster, harder, wish time would morph.

Even down on the tarmac it's still a wait til you can get out of those doors.

Sleep. That's my trick to surviving nausea.

A ferry ride so violent people scream at the drop between waves? Gravol and sleep at the back because I do not want to throw up.

I don't know why I resist it so much but I do, I do, I do, I do and it was one of the biggest freak outs in my life to overcome every instinct and reaction and feeling I had and be sick with him there.

I threw up
in front of him
and nothing bad happened.

And I felt a lot better after, (aye, there's the rub. Fuck you very much nausea.)

But that was harder than almost anything I've done with him before or since.
I've told him as much and he nods and says he understands but he doesn't get it.
It's not a big deal to him, to have helped a friend who got sick, but to me...
Everything.
Massive.
The amount of fear I pushed through felt insurmountable. It really did. But I did, and now it's all a little easier.

I've always said I'll take pain over discomfort. Pain over nausea certainly.

But I've never really known why.

Maybe some day I'll understand it and then it'll all be better.

Or maybe it just is what it is. That’s ok too.

Tuesday, April 15, 2014

It's Only Paranoia If You're Wrong. And I'm Not Saying I'm Right.

I can taste you
I can
But you haven't been here in a week.

You've ignored me
You have

And when someone retreats
My walls go up twice as fast

For I will push harder and harder
At someone who's leaving me

As everyone does

To make the pain burn the remembering inside of me
You can't trust anyone
No one stays
It's only ever you
Remember?
Remember?
And everyone lies
You're not good enough to stay for
No matter the pretty promises they throw your way.

But I can taste you
And I

Wish
I believed you

Wish I was
wrong

Wish I didn't know

Words are only words

And actions
mean everything

And I read between the lines
perfectly clearly

The mind wants to know
who got the attention
I didn't
this week

and don't tell me
"busy"
we all know that's bullshit.

I
Told you
I needed you

Maybe that was my mistake

I thought maybe
it could be you
warts and all

but this all
only makes sense
if it's bad

because boys who like girls
men who like women

Don't
just
disappear

You see,
This is what happens when I'm left to my own devices
I figure out the truth
as it stands
with no one to erase the assumptions

But I can taste you
And you're not here

Sunday, April 13, 2014

Finding The Light In It All

The best part of my week
(my not so easy week)
was you standing there
arms out
smile on your face
saying "I'm trying to give you a hug."

I hadn't noticed
my
head
wasn't in that space

but the best part of my week
(my let's not have another week like that for a while, ok? please? week)
was feeling you holding me

my body
pressed up against yours
your arms
around me
feeling your breathing
against mine
chest to chest
stomach to stomach
that sense of
"there isn't a me any more."
just this feeling
this moment
this melting
I'm ok. I'm safe. He's here. It's all ok now.

Here's the thing, the truth of it all... the very best part of my week?
(my we all made it through this, didn't we week?)
was the feel of your skin
under my lips
as you held me.

Me, breathing softly against the base of your neck
feeling you that close
my skin
your skin
together
tender
soft
sweet smelling and
pure

me resting my head on your shoulder and breathing you in
drinking you in
dizzy from the headiness of it all

I could live in that moment
I did live in that moment.
Actually
felt
in that moment

breathed
calmed
loved
was loved

eternal.

That moment
pressed up close against you
resting my head
on your shoulder
my face
lips
mouth
safe against your neck
all of me held safe and close
eyes closed
breathing with you
was the best part of my week.

Being in that space with you
in that moment
lips against nape

That
was the best part of my week.

Thank you.