Disparity

Sometimes, it doesn’t seem fair that it hits me so much harder than it does you.

Downtime

I sold myself to a multitude of pain for a moment of bliss.

Should I be worried? Because it is in your arms that I’ve found a somewhere I’d like to rest, at the end and beginning of every day. And I meant it, when I whispered softly, “This isn’t good. I think I’m getting used to you”. At the same time, clutching myself tightly to your chest and feeling a wave of sobering fear ripple through my consciousness. Morning would come, and with it the desperate wish that it could always be like this.

So I grasped fervently at every minute, hung on your every word, lingered in every tender gaze, suspended in every circle your dancing fingers swirled and swished over my back, breathed in the intensity of every kiss; but waiting on tenterhooks for your hand to pull out of my clasp, or your body to recoil from mine.

But you didn’t. You came back for more.

Perhaps that’s what I needed to know. Maybe, all that I needed to know, for now. That Sydney wasn’t just a one night stand, a cruel trial, an un-redeemable mistake. That you could perhaps, on some level, find me desirable. It would be a sign, that there was something keeping you here – a residue of feeling somewhere in there that never went away, an ounce of courage to take a stab at the future, a sliver of hope that you might step up, a hint of some repressed love you never dared to attest to.

Things have changed. “This is good. Lots of talk, lots of sex,” you murmured into my earlobe in jest. So I can’t help but notice the subtle shifts in our strange relationship, both said and unsaid. You no longer shudder away from me when my fingers brush against yours, or when our skin touches when I lean ever so slightly against you on the bus. We’re now able to engage in the cheeky banter and playful flirtation I’ve often found myself all too often envying, as I watched but was never able to participate.

And there’s no reason why things shouldn’t have taken the slightest of turnarounds. I’ve as good as given myself to you. After all, I’ve felt you, and you’ve felt me.

And now that I know… I feel like I can taste what it means to be loved. And if this is but a mere foretaste, what people might deem a cheap imitiation, a pariah breed of its real form… I suppose I can only begin to imagine the fulness of love in all glory, the day it arrives.

Even if life inevitably drives us down divergent paths. If a day should come when I no longer have the strength to hold on. If you should ever forget what we shared in these 8 days. If you could ever find it in you to leave me for good. If my heart should ever find another -

It was worth it.

There are a million reasons why this was wrong, and why it wouldn’t and could never work out. And yet, all I can think about, is when I’ll see you again, or when I might next wake to your sleepy smile.

Excerpt

And yet, I found that I could survive. I was alert, I felt the pain – the aching loss that radiated out from my chest, sending wracking waves of hurt through my limbs and head – but it was manageable. I could live through it. It didn’t feel like the pain had weakened over time, rather that I’d grown strong enough to bear it.

New Moon
- Stephanie Meyer

Not This, Then That.

And strangely it seems, that the only way to distract yourself from one pain, is to feel the sting of another.

It always somehow, becomes a bit too much for me to handle.

And I wonder, when, when will a day come, when I can bear it no more.

Thank God,

Simply for space,

to come up for air;

to write, not towards a word count, or to be measured against a bell curve;

to think, of anything, everything, all the possible permutations and combinations;

to plan, without a prescribed structure, for all the what-ifs and the maybe’s;

to prepare, for the worst (?)

to dream again, albeit maybe, of all the wrong things;

to pray and converse, challenge a wrestle, ask the hard questions;

to breathe.

Txt

I am starting to feel like my life is not my own. Is that selfish? Just but one of the many flaws I’m beginning to discover about myself.

I seek attention. I crave attention. I don’t like to share.

I need to be at the centre, or I retreat into a corner. Not like the wallflower, whose bland shades of grace and modesty naturally and willingly fade iinto the background. But like the petulant child, face glowering in contempt, lips curled into a tight pout.

My tantrum I throw in silence.

It isn’t pretty, I’m not proud of it, but it seems, at the of guts of it all, to be who I am.

_____________________________

I will never be able to translate love into a language you understand.

_____________________________

Oh Father, Restorer of my Soul, I seek you in this moment of need. My resolve falls slack and my hope wavers like a candle in the wind. Weakness buckles my knees and stings my eyes. Would you lift my head again, lift my eyes to see your face, enlarge my mind to grasp the enormity of your embrace and an all sufficient love that would leave me wanting no other. Jesus, would you show me the way.

How would you treat these people? Navigate this situation with the tenderness of love and the abundance of grace, and yet, maintain the firm, true stance of a solid rock.

I want to walk back in there with a brave smile. Not because it was the easy thing to do but because I rest in the security of knowing that you go before me, blazing the trail.

_____________________________

Sometimes, I find more comfort in sleep racked by nightmares. Rather relief wash over me when I wake, than having to face the rude shock of reality in the revelation that the stuff of good dreams, were nothing but.

Bitter Aftertaste

This weekend has been so full.

I feel like I’ve been hit left, right and centre with realisations, epiphanies, truths, revelations and opinions – from Equipping Weekend to intense conversations with D to the Dark Knight. It’s just been a relentless onslaught of confronting material. An accumulation of events and thoughts that is most likely going to take the next few weeks to unravel and make sense of.

As I wind down on a Sunday evening, the first day of a new semester pending when the morning comes, here is the chaos and the emptiness that T warned of – necessary discomforts that are purported and promised to be pivotal in this journey, spiralling every upward; towards new levels of growth and maturity, of grace and faith.

And the truth is, I can’t help but feel weary already.

What do you do when someone tells you to tear down the scaffolding of a structure you’ve been toiling to build? The one you’ve been desperately trying to hold together, grasping at every last straw. The one you’ve been trying to prop up – Blood, sweat, tears, and all. They are rendered irrelevant in eyes that cannot perceive their worth, nothing but a house of cards. Like words fallen on ears that are not deaf, but refuse to hear. Like hope presented before hearts that have bowed to resilience and apathy; now turned to stone, impassive, immovable.

So, here I am, faced with the hard-lined reality I forced myself to face; the harsh truths that I unleashed upon my consciousness. At the same time, somehow unable to bear a moment longer of living in an illusion of doctored peace.

Damned that I did, damned if I didn’t.

Was it a brave show of bravado and fool-hardy recklessness to prove something? I suppose time and action will tell.

As for now though – an appropriate response, an effective cathartic exercise that I desperately need to relieve steam, to release this frustration that has been pent up for a very long time, eludes me.

Should I feel liberated? Now that I have said (most of) my peace. He cannot claim ignorance. I can walk away in the security of the knowledge that I did all that I could. He can’t say that he didn’t know. I can’t say that I didn’t try.

Should I now cry, for having loved and lost? Because anything but a ‘yes’, was a ‘no’.

Should I now look to the future, brimming over with hopeful optimism? When really, I am fighting just to quell this unsettling feeling of deep dissatisfaction.

And so, if it falls apart,

So let it be.

Oh yes, the darkness is darkest before dawn.

.

.

My pen seems to have fallen silent, and the paper tells no tales.

The protagonist of this story is starting to lose the plot. There are too many circular arguments that have led me back to square one; too many loopholes that leave gaping voids to fill; too many contradictions and distortions of the truth that have destroyed the integrity of this narrative.

I am not myself,
I think I left her behind at the last turning.

Under Construction

A new place to reconstruct myself for the new year.

Space – to grow, to feel, to think, to breathe – without restriction or a fear of being boxed in by political correctness, wagging tongues or judgmental eyes.

It’s back to the drawing board for me, in more ways than one.

P.S. For now, this stays my little secret.