I Wrote This After Now

If things had been different...
Such an innocent phrase, naive, used by both the young and hopeful, and the tired and empty.
If things had been different, maybe I wouldn't be the latter.
Maybe I would be looking ahead to the shining future of a young professional;
"I'm a writer!" She says, with all the unearned confidence of a lamb masquerading as a tiger. But it wouldn't matter how many wolves licked their lips, she would persist.
The world nothing but her oyster, her deep sea diving suit comprised of the ring on her finger and a four year degree in a field that doesn't pay unless you never ever stop swimming.
If things had been different...I could see it, all of it, steadily waiting on the horizon line.
If the affair never happened, if the strokes never struck down my father, if my heart didn't break every day for a decade feeling my mother's resulting resolve and desperation, if they had chosen to to tell me sooner that my conception was a cash-for-services exchange...
If.
If.
IF.
But there's no sense in the 'ifs', is there? Reality is the here and now, in all its dark misunderstood glory. Reality is the relentless questioning of God, and then questioning if I'm allowed to question Him. It's the way thoughts run over themselves until I can't tell what's real, and whispering "Please stop," to the girl in the mirror as if she has any clue how to make herself cease to feel, cease to think, cease to...be.
They say my heart is hard, but they have no idea how hard it really is to stop it from bleeding. I've just gotten a knack for cleaning up the mess.
But it seems no matter how deeply I scrub, some of the stains never come out. My assumption is that most people have stains though, in one form or another, but of course very few are inclined to rip up their carpets to validate my point. Can't blame them.
Regardless, reality has brought us all here. To now.
Now, when I'm deciding if I want to live in a duplex or an apartment after I'm married, while blood stains the waistline of my jeans.
Now, filtering through housing options, because they have to allow cats.
And now, wondering what kind of nerve I must have committing to someone for life when I often question how long I'd like mine to last.
Now is a funny thing that way. Built of layers of ifs, and maybes, and "it won't always be like this," and sometimes I wonder if I'll ever see the future when I can't reach beyond the past.



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Breathless

I can only hope that what they'll come to eventually see Is me becoming more of me, And less of a shell, quiet and empty, An echo chamber of my own little hell. Please understand, I wish everyone well, But the moments I want to scream come so unexpected, It's an executed ambush that steals my lungs first so I cannot tell. So as I'm begging for breath, For just a little more space, Watching the darkness sparkle the air in front of my face, I begin to remember I wasn't always this way. Not always the causation of furrowed brows, And the subject of back door conversation, They tell me that they worry, And I suppose I would too if I heard the hush that fell in post-devastation. See, one day it left and never truly came back-- And not one song, no sermon, nor academic study ever seemed to summon it again after that. Filling the silence never worked-- Not the dark whispered tones, The empty laughter, The blaring radio every late night drive home, I t
Read more

Scarlet, My Dear, I Don't Give a Damn.

And I grapple with you, monster that burns in me-- You swallow all my thoughts while breathing fire through my hips, and the smoke makes it a challenge to keep my inhale steady, Your rough hands can shut my eyes -- but I suppose fire is better in the dark, so would I really want to see? I am you, and you are me. Abiding in one body, and sharing the same dirty dreams, but damn, if you don't go and make my life harder, you tease. "take me, taste me, unleash me please," she screams. You impatient Jezebel-- with the blood red lips and half-starved kiss, 50 things I hate about you? well, I could make a list. But there's so much power in your touch, too much unbridled power-tripping lust, so I know better than to bite your tongue. I am she and she is I, but when you lift your head, I have learned to stand aside. oh monster, consider it a promise, you will have your time. when, and only when, he is fully mine.
Read more

For Her

This one is for her. This one is for the girl in the spring, staring numbly out the window as the world came back to life, wondering how many left turns it takes to make something right. This one is for every hopeful thought she shot down, and for every conviction that she beat into submission. It's for every blackout curtain she closed, desperate to keep out the light. For the latest of nights, when dawn came too soon, And it felt like bleeding out just to leave her room. She's not the one I'm proud of, she's not the one who made it easy. The long drives, the false hope, the teasing, Pouring lies like fountain soda, Spirit parched for anything of worth. Forgiving of nothing, And deserving no forgiveness, There is no crime if there's no witness.
Read more