He comes up behind me as I lie still, curled up in the bed."Shhhh," he whispers, though I haven't moved, haven't said a thing.
I wanted to get up when he came in; when I heard the door open behind me. Wanted to occupy myself to hide my tears, my frustration, my pain. But he keeps telling me: Marriage is about showing me all the parts of you that you don't let anyone else see. So I lie still. And my tears drip down his arm that is curled around my head, cupping the crown of my head in his palm. "I love you, baby girl." He punctuates his whispered words with kisses to my temple: "Always, always, always." How do you explain to someone that you are not the person they think you are?
Mary left the window open
to hear the birds sing but the birds have flown and flown is her soul, flown on the winter wind It's 3 in the morning and I can't sleep.
Actually, it's more like 2:30 and I could be sleeping, but I'm up, trying to study, failing to concentrate, writing and listening to music instead. My head is full of words. It took a while for me to get that out. Attempt #1: My words are full of thoughts. Attempt #2: My thoughts are full of words. My brain is scrambled and fried. My head is heavy and my face is numb. I'm exhausted. (So sleep, stupid.) I know, I know. I should sleep. But I have so much that I still have to do. I want someone to sing me to sleep. I feel sad when my days aren't productive; when I feel that I haven't chipped enough away from the mountain of things that I have to do. I say that like I have a lot of responsibilities. The truth is, I probably have no idea what it feels like to have a (metaphorical) mountain of things to get done. My mind has just gone blank. Sleep. I want to be that person in some person's life who makes their eyes to glow and their mouth-corners to twitch upwards with laughter. I want to thoroughly own the corner of some person's heart.
To be that person they write a song about that they sing with eyes closed and a ghost of a smile on their hearts. To be the one who knows them--knows them so they don't need to speak for me to hear; don't need to utter a sound for me to understand. To be the reason for the emptiness they feel inside their arms as they sit inside the plane, to be the reason they come back home. I want to know that happiness. She spent her whole life waiting for it. That kiss that would take the pain away. The whisper that would break the dam of salty tears. That wind that would blow her fears away and leave her shaking and pure. The waves that would wash away her walls and smooth the rough sides of her heart.
When it came, she was stumbling. Stumbling and running, and facing in the wrong direction. She had to stop and turn around, startled and squinting, immediately knowing that this was it. It never goes further than this. This story always stops before it starts, ends before the better thing happens. It goes this way because I don't know. I don't know, in these moments of tranquil melancholy what's happening next. I only know that this girl is me. Waiting, and running, and stumbling and wanting to know the truth but scared of what it might say. I don't know who I am. That is a truth. I don't know where I am going. That is another. There are many things I know to be true. I don't know how to piece them all together. From days when I wrote long letters over tear-stained papers, bent over, an arm shielding my heart and smudging my ink. With me on one side and all the world on the other. To these days when I stumble along, and don't know that I stumble. When I run and don't know that I run. When I doubt myself and want to hide myself when I get sidelong glances in the hall. Its not better to hide, though it feels safer that way. It's not better to not try, though the trying may break us down and leave us broken. It's not ok to stay where you are. It's not ok to be content with this you that you are now. You need to look for the better thing. It's coming, if you keep walking. It's going to be ok. Don't ever let your FEAR stop you from living your LIFE.
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