How Beautiful

Extracting feeling from a moment already lived, feeling a year-old ray of sunlight hitting my face, taking myself back to the summer when everything was beautiful, I lose myself, suddenly. I lose myself in you. 

How beautiful it was, to be loved well by you. How beautiful, to see you kneeling there before me, the smell of gunpowder and grass all in the air, the spotlight on us, the crowd's eyes on us. How beautiful it was, to say "Yes." 

And how beautiful it was, that day at the lake, to be happy again, to feel alive like I never had before. How beautiful it was, to feel your body next to mine as I drifted into sleep. How beautiful, to let the wind in through the window. How beautiful our life was together.

Let's forget about the ending, my darling, my runaway, my lost-at-sea. Let's forget about the space between you and me. Let's forsake our memories of a red-hot January, when our screams did carry through the neighbor's walls, let's forsake it all. I'm letting go of it all.

I'm letting go.

I'm letting go of the hatred, the anger, the fear, the rage, the depression, the darkness I held so near to me. I'm letting go of our last goodbye, your face all grey, your bones visible through your marked skin. I'm letting go of the worst of it, but I'm holding onto what we had.

How beautiful it was, watching my daughter run into your arms. How beautiful it was, watching you grow and change beside me. How beautiful it was, being your everything, your family. How beautiful we were in the mirror together. How well we fit.

These are the things I will remember. 

The best of our love, I will remember you by. 

Thank you for everything.

I will never forget. 

Into the Labyrinth

After the light in my eyes had gone out, once I had hit the bottom layer of hell in his absence, I decided to begin the upward journey, the adventure into my core. I didn't have a map to take with me, or any provisions, but a sense of curiosity at what I would find there. With his back turned to me, his gaze fixed on his own path, I found it easier to go forward without looking over my shoulder. 

So I started into the labyrinth of my self, color before me and a graveyard behind. Mirrors abounded on the maze walls; never in my life had I seen my face so often, and with such clarity. I looked into my own eyes at every turn, on every corner, and saw within myself a lost and broken child. "Come with me," I said to her, gently. "I think I know how to get us out of here." 

I've been shaking ever since I started forward, but my steps echo with the sound of love. I think of him every time I turn around, the ache never lessening, the nightmares of his stone-cold face never failing to catch me in my deepest sleep. But I can feel, in the ache, a possibility blooming. I just want to be someone that he could be proud of, but I have to be proud of me first. 

How did I go so long without embracing myself? How did I live twenty two years without realizing that I fit perfectly in my own arms? How did I get so far without seeing this light? 

Lost within my center, I feel a new completeness that just can't be described. Do I miss him? I more than miss him. He was my rock. You don't understand. Even the worst, most horrid terrors could be escaped in his presence. Even the deepest, most inescapable nightmares melted away when I woke up next to him. But he's lost to me now, lost in his own maze. Somehow, slowly, in dreams and in waking, I'm letting go of his hand. I'm learning to walk on baby-fawn legs. I'm navigating my inner sanctuary like I was made to do it. And I was. I was. This is what I was made to do.

I wear jewelry these days, to remind myself I deserve to be adorned in beauty. I speak kindly to my reflections in the hall of glass. I almost lost my life to the clutches of hopelessness and self-hate. I won't allow them to try to kill me again. They don't have the password at the door anymore. They don't belong inside. 

Grounded in confidence, splashing paint across the stars, I walk in health, alive. How fortunate I am, to be alive. Love radiates from me. Truth is spoken through me. I can see my future through a hole in the wall. I've never felt so close to the clouds in my existence.

I've never been more alone.

I've never been more in love.

I've never been more alive.

 

Dear Life,

Give me the mountains in all their regality, and the moon in its mystery, and the stars that nudge me ever forward into the void. Give me tattooed skin and wild hair, a blood stained wall in my inner sanctuary. Give me vodka sodas, give me Camel Whites, give me something to hold in my hands as I die to myself. Give me lawlessness, and give me liberty, and please, for the love of God, give me hope that the roof will someday pop off this dusty house.

Give me a beacon of insanity in a world gone grey.

Give me back my light, and give me all your love, and give me all the bravery that one small body can hold inside. Give me cowardice and fear and avarice. Give me vices, give me virtues, give me my humanity. Give me sunshine to nurture, rain to ponder, and snow to seethe inwardly, that I may remember it’s not all roses. Give me roses. Give me thorns. Give me practical gardening tools.

Hold me close to your center. Love me and nourish me and make it all too complicated to comprehend. Allow me to sit here on my fence. Allow me to sit here in my head. Allow me to be seated in awe of you, my teacher.

Give me all of it. Everything that’s meant for me. I’m ready now.