This Train

I can cut this sadness with a knife. Would you like a piece? I thought not. I can't stop this train. Everyone on this train is not growing strong but instead, more fragile and crystallized in their flaws. All you can do is observe, if you're aware of what you're looking at.

Train's picking up speed. They don't tell you how it creeps up on you while you're making sure no hair strand is out of place. While your thoughts are roaming and resting upon something offensive a stranger said. Or as you're picking out lingerie at a downtown boutique. 

No one tells you how words can change your whole world in an instant. How they can give or take away hope. No one tells you how you're here now but maybe not in the next. 

In the next life? What does it matter? Oh, those glory days. Remember them? When your face turned pepper red because some crush said something nice to you. And all you wanted was to rush time ahead so you could get to do all those things you couldn't when you were young. You thought freedom was something you could buy.

And then you got your freedom and it wasn't what you had imagined it would be, would look like, feel like. It was a steady train going nowhere. It was only ever a steady train until it wasn't.

It wakes you up from your dreams. Any control you thought you had is now an illusion, something life forced upon you in order to surrender to it. Do you understand? The more resistance you display, the more friction you'll have to endure.

I miss those days when dreaming was right and good. I don't miss those days when I realized that dreaming was only for the innocent.

Here we are, wondering how we got here. Except it's so pointless to wonder. You can't turn back time. And while the future isn't guaranteed, this moment is all we really have. May these moments be blessed with the kind of hope and faith that move mountains, not merely to exist, but to live, to simply...live. And to live simply with grace.

The Lone Wolf

I can't believe how it's come to this. I didn't see it coming. I feel more of myself shedding, layers sloughing, pieces falling away in chunks. I swear I can hear the pieces when they hit the ground. It can feel abrasive, shocking. They wake me up to this kind of horror I don't know how to unsee. You think me dramatic? I see things. 

The way you carry yourself. The way we all carry ourselves. It's all just fading away into nothing. Nothing anyone can do about it. What are you doing? Are you helping polish my ruby? Is that what this is for? You want me pure and whole? I'm not stupid, you know. I understand that's what it takes to get there...to be there.

Oh baby, I'm a lone wolf who feels things. Feels things deep in my bones. These bones that are getting weaker and yet, stronger...because I'm a lone wolf. And to think that there was something wrong with me only to discover that there isn't, that all I have to do is accept this is who I am...what a relief, what a gift from the angels, what peace to be bestowed upon me when I read words on a page that whispered to me that I'm not alone, that I'm finally understood. 

I like to be alone. But not only that...I need to be alone to recharge. Recharging comes from the act of reflection. I work things out quietly, without the help of anyone. 

I don't enjoy large crowds or parties, though I'm not one hundred percent an introvert. I value and cherish one on one connections. If we have a connection, it's because we wholeheartedly accept one another. If we don't, it's not because you're not liked. It's because we don't jibe. I won't sacrifice my mental and emotional health to spend time with people because we have the same blood coursing through our veins. My friends are my family. My family are not necessarily my friends.

When I hurt, it takes a long while to recover. Especially, when it's completely unexpected, when someone I thought was genuine turns out to be just like the rest. Even if hurting me was unintentional, even if the other person was oblivious to their own lack of attention,  I become acutely aware in an instant, that I had valued someone who didn't value me in the same way. 

If that person apologizes, I feel a hardening suddenly soften because I see that they care. But if there's no apology, even if to that person, they din't see they've done anything wrong, it just reinforces to me that while my perception may be incorrect about them, they can't be the company I keep because the right person for me would know to apologize.

Since I have a good read on people for the most part, I see when a truth is staring at me in the face because it's one I'd rather not see. I'd rather not see it and that's how I know it rings true. I can't make any excuses for them. I can't pretend I don't feel what I feel. Rather, my feelings show me what cannot be denied.

So, as a lone wolf, aloneness can become loneliness until I remember to accept who I am and then I realize it's better to be here alone and at peace than be connected to someone who doesn't respect me the way I deserve to be respected.

No Ceremony

I'm so lucky. I didn't realize just how lucky I was until I opened my eyes this morning and saw the light reflect through the makeshift stained glass windows. The things I can see and the feelings I can feel when one eye is poking out from behind the satin sheets.

I'm snug as a bug. I've got my flowers, my books, by blackout navy blue curtains, my colourful bed quilt, my red and yellow dresser, my red nightstands, glass red lamps...Oh gosh, the things I can dream up in this room, you can't imagine. I love it here...no drama...except for the kind I can concoct all by myself. That's the only kind I'll accept.

I am finalizing the last remaining details of my Will and Testament. Yes, that day has come to think about such things, about the finality of everything as I know it. 

Even here in my imagination, even here where I escape from the harshness of life, reality still manages to take a foothold. But, I'm going to make it beautiful. I'm going to make it count. 

There will be no funeral, no wake, no ceremony. My ashes will be scattered on the water somewhere of my choosing. No one will gather around for me. Let us rejoice eachother while alive. 

I don't care for your tears if your presence is non-existent...now. Stay away. I'm perfectly fine. I've been to enough funerals to know none of it actually matters. I see how people treat eachother. I see how family members fall short. I see how asleep we all are. I see how mean, cruel and petty we can be. I'll let none of that honour me in the end. I won't give anyone who didn't care in this life for me an opportunity to give some meaningless speech about how they wished they'd tried harder to be kinder. Fuck you!

Maybe some of my ancestors will greet me, maybe Mary will be there, maybe Jesus, angel Uriel ? Thank goodness for you all. I'll forget this place but first give it thanks. I hope I've gathered enough of myself to still exist. Maybe, just maybe, and only then, my suffering will finally make sense.

Ireland

I feel you, Ireland. I feel you. Just looked into the eyes of a young man, a teenager as he walked past...and he brought me right back here to you. I don't know why. I don't know why.

My brother mentioned how no one cares about the elderly. I don't think anyone cares much about anyone unless it's their own and even then, you're left to wonder.

I don't think he cares at all about me, except superficially. He'd be the first in church though, to speak at the altar about who he thought I was, about how he misses me, how he'd wished he'd been there, done more. Too late. Being two steps ahead has always been painful. Information is freedom, yes. The other side of that is, "The truth hurts." I see the truth of things as they are.

These thoughts seem to matter now. They carry weight right over my shoulders. And I'm already carrying a heavy load. Burdens help you see the truth. They help you remember how much you long for lightness, how you've forgotten how great things used to be but you failed to see it, experience it fully. 

It's not that no one tells you or warns you about what's coming. It's that it just doesn't compute or register in the moment. It can't. You're over there...and you can't fathom what it might mean to be over here. You can't see that far ahead. Thank goodness for some mercy.

Then it's as if mercy takes a back seat. Or is it faulty perception? Is it a lack of faith that I wallow in self-pity? Is it that I never felt carried? Is it that I didn't want to be carried? Is it that I feel too heavily? Is it that I'm not light enough? Well yeah, I seem to have established that.

My Name Is Rose

I can’t stand him. The way he turned on a dime. What a piece of work. Nothing worth buying or hanging on my wall, that’s for sure. To have so little respect for me, I’m still shocked. I didn’t deserve that. I deserved a response. That’s all. And, apparently that was too much for the guy. 

Now, when I look back, I can’t believe I overlooked his arrogance and lack of depth. Why would I do that? What’s wrong with these men? To think they’re God’s gifts to the world. What a fake. What a heartless, cold and insecure little shit. What a huge turn off. I’m glad I’m turned off. There’s no turning back from this. There’s nothing he can say or do to change my mind about him. Absolutely nothing. He showed me who he is. And even if it wasn’t intentional, the fact that he doesn’t see he owed me a response, suggests to me, he isn’t the kind of person I want to share anymore time with. No way. I say, “Never!”

I don't know what I expected. I thought you might turn out to be more of a friend than some kind of professional acquaintance. I don't know about you, but this is old. The excitement, possibility, anticipation of joy...it's all gone. The tone is flat. No one's humming. No one's singing. There's nothing here.

It's just me and this worn out dress. The colour has faded from an emerald green. But you know, the arrangement of flowers I willed here in this space more than makes up for my lack of lustre. You don't know how hard I try in my waking life to crack a smile so my light shines through my eyes. I think my light is trapped behind fragile bones. I'm always 45 here. I like that age. Estrogen is still my friend.

I'm so free here. My body takes on a new shape. Tiny stars make up the periphery of this form. There's no way you'd mistaken me for a nobody. Only a few are welcome here, as I drag my sword across the abyss. If I can stay long enough with the truth, I'll overcome. I may even grow wings and fly to far away places, places you've never been, places people like you need psychedelics to get to. 

I never asked him to touch my hair or caress my cheek. I never asked he buy me pretty things or take me out for dinner. I never asked him to cross a line. I couldn't bear waking up the next morning feeling the silence of rejection after having given him the opportunity to have his cake and eat it, too.

Standing there, so close and yet so far, stings. It's another drop of poison after a long hiatus. My body just doesn't bounce back as quickly despite the time lapse. 

I just wanted to know you wanted me. I know my place. I know your place. I'm not that woman. I wanted, secretly. Putting myself in your shoes prevented me from making a mistake. I can't tell you how badly...ah, never mind.

He has no clue what I am. I’m the world. Nothing gets in because I’ve mastered the art of shutting the wrong people, out. While I’m dancing in my circle, in my circle for one, I twirl and I jump and I swing from side to side, without a care...in the world. 

I’m the high priestess. I know but I don’t tell what I know. Secrets stay with me. The truth is already there long before I’ve caught on. And, I catch on, and before it’s too late. Because I’m also the princess of stones, tending to my garden, while you try to take a sneak peek, only to realize to your utter dismay, that I don’t need you and never have. Never will. It’s not in my nature...to need you. 

That must rub you the wrong way. Yes, it does annoy you. I know that it does...because I’m the high priestess who knows and stays quiet...about what she knows. I don’t take initiative because I’m a Lady. A Lady won’t dare go to anyone...let alone any man. She belongs to the heavens where she can’t be defiled. Do you even know what the word means? You and your house and your cars and your money? Making money your goal, your god, diminishes your worth as a man. How can you not see that?

You can’t carry a flame to my name...because my name is Rose. It’s not that I’m too sweet for you...that isn’t it. It’s that you haven’t earned a space in my life to be worthy of my pricks...

You, Again

I'm not sure whether I like you anymore. The Ashwagandha supplement I've been taking is contributing to my most recent vivid dreams. 

There you are again. We're sitting side by side but you don't say a word. It's a cold day. Again, all I can see are greys and shades of navy blue. There are so many people gathered together, as though we're all friends. I can't make out where we are but I find out quickly that behind this place is a body of water with huge rocks. On the other side, is where most people are hanging around, including you, sitting on a chair on a porch with your feet up. 

I look at you but you don't look up at me. I know that you can see me looking at you. But, it doesn't make a difference. You're not the same guy I remember. You're distant and vacant, like no one's home.

I head for the water...because that's my home. It feels like a storm is coming. Or has it already come and gone? I make my way back to the other side where you are but when I take a quick glance, you're no longer sitting on the porch. I feel a weight again in my stomach. A sadness washes over me, the kind I should have let the water handle.

I leave this place now and reach the street waiting for the lights to turn green. As I wait, I look behind me to see where you might be. You're no where. I turn my head back to the lights. I notice two guys playing with some ice along the street. It's left-over ice, filled with dirt and debris, the kind that takes the longest to disappear before spring claims the scene. One of the guys takes my hand to help me to the other side of the street so I don't slip and fall. I let him. He's kind. A stranger. He doesn't know me. And I don't know him. It's pleasant. A gesture of warmth on a cold day. He adds some much needed colour. Because you've managed to take it all away. And you didn't have to do much. You only had to do nothing. That upsets me.

It's time for me to get into the backseat of a car. There you are on the right. Someone else joins us. I don't know who it is but he's not doing well. I let him get in first so I don't sit in the middle of the two of you and to avoid sitting so close to you. That bothered you. In a way, it bothered me, too. Because I wanted to sit next to you. But the thought of being rejected again by you felt unfair and not bearable. Better like this, I thought. Yes, better like this.

It's just my mind working things out. I'm not sure it's doing a good job. How many more of these dreams do I need to have in order to see who you are? I know who you are. You're cruel. You're arrogant. You're so full of yourself. But, you're empty. An empty shell. Once I get that into my thick skull, once I really see this about you, the dreams will stop. 

And then I'll resume happier and more powerful dreams of flying in the air in my gorgeous gown, like a priestess whispering spells in the air, recalling times such as these as being nothing more than leaves changing color and falling to the ground, devoured by winter knowing full well, it's all just itching towards a brighter and more freeing day. It's coming soon. Very soon. I'll be ready.

Heart

My heart. My poor heart. And all the secrets it keeps. More than this, there really is nothing. Maybe more than this should be more than enough. It should be enough. I'm just mourning what cannot be. That's all. Just grieving over endless endings, the concept of beginnings and endings. It's another day, a new chapter.

Why does it feel like the same chapter? I must have only taken a detour. Had a look at the scenery, those bright green leaves, felt how the air expanded my lungs, how my feet enjoyed the soil, under the bright sun, or in the shadows of the moon. Yes, it was only a detour.

Now I'm back, back to the life I created. It's not so bad. It's not so bad. I'll find excitement here again. I will. It's just faulty perception, I tell myself. Yes, faulty perception, a faulty outlook, a faulty way of being. I can fix this.

No, I can't. I'm helpless against this. I have to admit I'm sad, sad, sad, to the core. I have to accept that there are places in my mind I'll go to that he won't or can't. There, here, the sadness grips me more. As long as I'm on this page, I'll have to surrender to it.

I take off my clothes and slip into bed. I imagine you there. You don't make a sound because like my dreams, I won't let you. In my dreams, I'll dream about all the things I want to do but won't let myself.

I keep staring at you as I doze off to sleep. I whisper that I miss you. I miss what never was and say good-bye. Good-bye. It was nice knowing you.

That way when I wake up, I can tell myself I have it all figured out.