The Secrets We Keep.

What would I know about the human who’s supposed to be my best friend making large dramatic exits from our home only to reappear hours later?

What would I know about about being gaslit and blamed for their bad behavior?

What would I know about getting picked on by the one person I sacrificed my body for and fighting for their mental health while losing my own?

What would I know about working myself to death in the name of carrying my family through one financial crisis after another?

What would I know about sheltering my children from their father’s breakdowns and dangerous behavior? 

What would I know about crying out for help and calling off the guards because I didn’t want people to know about what happened behind closed doors?

What would I know about having to call the crisis line without hesitation for my own child because I saw what lack of intervention would lead to?

What would I know about biting my lip and closing my eyes to dial 911 on a family member because they were no longer just a danger to themselves?

What would I know about having CPTSD because I loved someone blindly and thought I could save them?

What would I know? Apparently... nothing.

Never enough words.

There are never enough and too many words just sitting, watching, waiting for their turn to tumble from my mouth or fingertips.

Sometimes I instantly regret the bleeding exposure of my heart.

Sometimes I wish I could lay curled up into you listening to your own heart beat change as you're exposed to what I have to say.

I feel too much but you'd never know it if you spent 5 minutes alone with me.

Emotions swell, ebb and flow. I am the ocean under this skin.

I yearn for you. My skin craves the warmth of you.

But there's no us and I don't want to be any part of an "us."

My brain is at war with itself. Wants and needs.

If none of this makes any sense, I'm blaming the blinding migraine that took my day from me.

You're not here and I think this muddles things indefinitely.

There's no conversation, it's all one sided in a brain overflowing with love and prescription drug induced serotonin surges. 

Domino effect: the surge flushes my cheeks, ears... an itch lifts hem of my skirt with thoughts of your hands where mine linger... my heart creeps upward into my throat and my brain remembers that you're not here and your voice is just a memory. Just a memory over crackling payphone wires stretched thousands of miles between my heart and yours.

What would you say to me if we bumped into each other in the produce section on a random Tuesday in March. Would you come up behind me and whisper "that one" in a single breath on the outer shell of my ear? I would put my apple back onto the pile of gold and ruby perfect pyramids and swear a ghost had stolen my heart while trying to remember which was sweeter, Fuji or Gala? Would you walk up with cantaloupe "breasts" seeking a laugh? Would you watch me walk by and not say anything?

Why do I keep myself awake imagining these scenarios when I don't want this. I *don't* want this.

Do I even know what I want?

Could you sit with me until I do?

Reinforcing the Foundation of my Heart.

I’ve been hurt. I’ve experienced trauma. I’ve been misled and lied too. I’ve surrendered my body and sacrificed myself for the betterment of others.

Because of this, I pulled the cloth of my life taut and taken hot a hot knife in my hand and severed the threads that keep me clinging to the me I once was.

If I hadn’t done this, I would still openly mourn her. Instead now, I nod knowingly accepting who she was and her purpose in my life. She was the stepping stones it took to get to here. And while I still sometimes glance at her in my rear view, we don’t put the car in reverse anymore to console the brokenness in her. I am a product of her pain and it has taken too long to brush the dirt off my knees to go backwards.

I’ve been hurt and sometimes I still hurt, but we don’t dwell in the pain. I’ve experienced trauma, but now I build on the rubble and reinforce the structure of the walls around my heart. I’ve been misled and lied too, so now I don’t believe anything I’m told unless I see the actions with my own eyes. I won’t sacrifice this body and mind for anyone ever again. Nor will I willingly allow others to sacrifice their time and hearts for mine.

Please don’t fall in love with me. I’m not ready for love. I’m too busy treating myself to the love I’ve always deserved and now demand of myself. I want the indulgence of desire, without the longing need to share it with someone else and I’m no longer entertaining those who show even an iota of interest in anything other than momentary fulfillment. You don’t deprive yourself of a quick scratch when an itch arises, do you? So don’t flatter me with your words; don’t make plans or toy with the notion of a future I don’t want.

I’m not looking for a forever with anyone other than myself, and I’m still getting to know her.

Confessions for the Homesick

I long for you in stolen moments. Deep in the recesses of my mind I know that the “you” I’ve created is not the “you” you have become. But what if it was? What if all these dreams and visions of that alternate universe were true? 

What if you walked through my door, took my face in your hands and kissed me like you’d been saving up for me your whole life? I want to think you’d scoop me up like the famous scene from “An officer and a gentleman,” and carry me down my steps, place me gently in your truck and we’d ride off into the sunset (but of course have me back before my children came home because, WHO AM I if not a mom now first?)

I want to believe that I truly saw a sparkle in your eye like lightning when you looked into my eyes. I want to believe that you would really go out of your way, detour a few hundred miles, to hold me again. I’d like to think the crook of your neck still fits my face and your collar still smells like old spice and Irish springs... that you give me your sweatshirt again and I sleep in it every night like I did after we first kissed.

Maybe it’s not you I long for on nights I lay in bed staring at the shadows crossing the ceiling. Maybe it’s someone else familiar but new all over. It still feels like homecoming knowing the feeling of my hand in yours and the spot beneath your lip where the scruff doesn’t grow. My lips remember every spot like muscle memory should.

I want to believe that the dreams I had when I was married that wracked me with guilt to the point I forced my then husband to come along with me to therapy so I could confess to what felt like an adulterous affair... I want to believe those dreams were you thinking them into existence in my subconscious. I can remember how my husband laughed at this confession, and how he’d asked if I’ve ever actually thought of anyone outside of dreams and my answer was always no but it was always you. You who were forever unobtainable and never to be heard of again. He would later express disbelief that I’d never acted on any advances from other men, that I’d never thought of being with someone other than him. I only ever dreamed of you and confessed those burning embers of guilt again and again to his heart. I took my vows so faithfully and every thought of you felt like a betrayal to them.

This isn’t about him, or the marriage that should not have been. This is about you, coming home to me maybe one day... someday soon.

Carnal

Your mouth is hot as it moves down my neck. Firm rough hands at my waist, pulling at me... pressing your heart against mine speaking to mine in ways our tongues can’t.

There’s so much to say; words deafening threaten the sound of my heart racing in my ears. Sweet whispers tickle at my collarbone, the roughness of the scruff of your chin scratching at my chest.

Strong arms wrap around my waist; your face buried into my neck, my hair. We’re as close to one as we’ll ever be.