At the time, I spoke in riddles, featuring abstract qualities of what my lover could not know. I hid the truth from him, as protection for us both, but it ate away at me to tell half-truths and speak a language I knew he could not comprehend.
One night a simple conversation turned bad. In jest, my new companion referred to my high school acting days as the medium through which I was able to lie. Maybe you should win an award, he said. Without explanation, our conversation came to a halt, and I did not speak to him again that evening.
Friday, March 17, 2006
What a show I will put on this weekend. I feel myself breathing deeply before each performance. I feel the heat rising in my face and the blood pulsing in my veins. You will see nothing behind the smiles and the laughs, but inside I burn with anger and frustration and humiliation. But this experience has taught me this. I would rather have a closet full of costumes and masks than to appear onstage naked and alone. I’d rather pretend to be someone else than to risk everything I’ve worked for. So I’ll play the part, and no one will ever know.
[Exit Catherine, Stage Right]
What a magnificent pain
To feel a fist drawn tight around my heart.
It nearly brought me to my knees,
Nearly tore my soul apart.
Maybe it wouldn’t have hurt so badly if what you’d said weren’t true. It caught me by surprise. I guess I thought you knew how much I’ve tortured myself this past week to do the right thing. I went against what my mind advised. I defied my better judgment and set myself up for ruin. I opened up, let my guard down. I made myself vulnerable to the simplest and most ill-planned attack.
Everyone is hurt at one point or another, so I don’t pretend to be alone or unique in my situation, but I didn’t expect it from you so soon. Now I feel hurt and embarrassed, angry, offended and sad. Yet after all that, I feel more determined in what I have to do.
That night he wrote me a poem. With brutal honesty and the fear of loss looming overhead, he wrote lines of prose in the early morning hours, and changed my mind about him.
Tonight the saddest thoughts run through my head.
To think that I don’t have her,
To think that I have lost her.
To hear this tragic night sky,
More tragic now that she is gone,
And this line of words falls on my soul.
The night has crashed and she is not with me.
Tonight the saddest thoughts run through my head.
Her voice, her body, her infinite eyes.
Because in nights like these,
I want her in my arms.
My soul is not content in losing her.
My friend, alone in this hour of the dead,
While full of the fires of life.
Tonight the saddest thoughts take over my mind.
I don’t know why I wrote you a poem tonight, he said. I don’t know if it’s good. I’m not a poet. I’m not much of anything in particular really. I’m just honest. I feel like what the lines say. I want you to read it to know how I feel.
My goal is to look at you,
Learn how you are,
Love how you are.
My goal is to talk to you
And listen,
To grab your words and create a bridge
That goes from your heart to mine.
My goal is to stay in your memories.
I don’t know how, really,
Or with what excuse
But to be present in your mind.
My goal is to be sincere
And know your sincerity,
And see that we don’t sell ourselves
To lies.
My goal is in reality
More simple and profound.
My goal is that there comes a day,
I don’t know how or when
Or with what pretext,
Finally you need me with you.
Little did he realize, that night I also wrote a poem, though less in length and thought.
At night I dream of Bolivia
With open arms and willing thought,
And though I dare not travel there,
Sometimes I dream, but ought to not.
That day words flowed through me like rivers; the pen came alive in my hand, and the pages waited patiently before my eager mind, holding endless promises with each new parchment.
I stand lonely at a crossroads,
Looking left, looking right.
I have to choose a path to take,
But neither choice is bright.
To my right I see a pasture.
It’s lush and tipped with snow.
On the left, I see a foreign land,
A road I do not know.
From above I see a blinking light.
It warns me not to go
Down roads of certain sadness,
Where tears like rivers flow.
In an effort to translate these words, I wrote: I see myself standing at a crossroads. Two paths diverge left and right. There is no way to continue down this road I’ve chosen. From where I stand, I can see a blinking stoplight flashing red warnings at me from above. Caution, it says. Tread softly, choose wisely. I cannot turn back now. My eyes are drawn to the right. I see rolling hills of tall grasses and snow-capped mountains in the distance. I gravitate toward the vision; I know this place, I belong to this land. The breeze wraps its arms around me, moving strands of hair across my face. It smells of summer here. I pass through a field of lofty reeds; they caress my outstretched palms and brush the insides of my thighs. I know this place—it’s filled with smiles, laughs, tears, blood, longing and pain, but it is familiar to me, and I accept and cling to it willingly. A voice calls to me, a whisper carried on the wind. It’s a language that I understand, but dare not speak. It beckons me closer in exotic tones; I can’t see where the voice is coming from or where it leads, but I feel its presence in the back of my mind. I can feel sudden shivers down my back, heat in my face. My heart is pounding and I can hardly breathe. I feel drugged by promise—I know I’m being seduced away from what I know. Part of me is frightened; my other half is tempted. In the distance, the blinking light says, Caution.
A defining moment is approaching, of that much I’m sure. It will be quick and cruel, and out of the triad will come a wounded soul. I’m afraid it may be me.
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