The Dream

Her eyes popped open, like a cork escaping an ice-cold bottle of champagne. She rested her head on the pillow for a minute lost in translation, trying to piece together the fragments of the dream that were whirling, blizzard-like, around her head. It had been the same dream. The same dream she had dreamt over and over again for the past fortnight. She had been wearing a heavy red cloak with a fur-trimmed hood, pulled right up over her head and drawn close around her neck. It had been snowing. Hard. She could hardly see and the wind was icy - that much she could hear because she hadn't felt cold. She could remember walking up to a black iron gate and peering cautiously through the bars when she saw it. And then she had pushed and the gate had silently swung forwards and her feet had carried her onto the pebbled drive and up towards an old Victorian house, which looked dark and uninhabited apart from a glowing ball of light coming from a window on the first floor. She could sense her pulse beating under the cloak and she had reached a pale white hand inside and laid it upon her heart. Those same feet had carried her resisting, fearful body right up to the front door with it's cracked white paint and rusty hinges that had screeched ominously as her trembling hand had pushed, not hard, and the door had creaked open. And now she had been inside. She could smell the age of the house, the years wafting towards her out of the darkness. For it had been pitch-black inside and any light she had been gifted with from the moon had been shut out as she entered. However, with the loss of the light came the gain of the low-pitched hum. A hum she didn't recognise from a song her ears had never heard. It had sounded like it was coming from down the spiral staircase. She couldn't see that is was a spiral, but she had guessed correctly. And as her feet carried her onto the first step she imagined it to be elegantly winding down from the first floor like a giant tongue. As she had climbed the gentle eery hum had grown louder, but not because she was getting closer to it - that much she knew - but because her ears felt it crescendo as her pulse quickened. She had felt that her heart couldn't possibly beat any faster or it might explode. Her senses had suddenly been so alert that her eyes had fought the darkness and been able to make out a huge portrait from the top most stair. And as she had teetered there swaying slightly a brilliant white stallion with fierce red eyes had glared angrily back at her, as it reared on it's powerful hind legs. She had gasped and the darkness had rattled in through her open mouth and at that exact moment the humming had stopped. Scared and unnerved by the horse and the sudden silence, she had unintentionally stepped backwards, her foot getting caught up in the heavy red cloak or had it been the darkness that had crept back up behind her? She hadn't known. But the sudden realisation that she was going to fall backwards down the spiral staircase had hit her. And then at that split second in the dream she had woken up. Her eyes had popped open like a cork escaping an ice-cold bottle of champagne. And now she was here in her large white cloud, with the duvet pulled up around her neck encasing her in a safe soft feathery cocoon.

The Argument

The helplessness is a red raw baby. Wildly flailing arms. Mouth open in a perfect ‘O’. The scream pierces my eardrum. I draw a quick sharp breath. The panic is funneled up my neck. Now it is searing into my brain. I can’t see. I can’t speak. I can’t think. All I want is for everything to be right. I need security. I need peace. I need you to believe me. The vulnerability I have is etched across my chest. The destitution I feel carved into my face. Eyes wide with longing. Mouth tight in agony. Emotional agony. Anger even. I thought I felt some anger. A quivering flame glowing from the embers in my palm. Crushing violating accusations shot at me straight from the barrel of a gun. Impossible to dodge it takes every effort to defend. Your minions mislead you. It is not true. Distorted fabricated facts slithering like poison up your leg. They tighten around your waist, but they will aim for your neck. They will get you one day. And I will know I tried in all my hopeless disheartened glory.

One day I will find you

The longing feels physical. It is a lump in my throat that grows and as I choke it back it sinks into my stomach. The longing for you to come back is overwhelming. Once I have you on my mind I know you will stay with me all day. I don’t blame you. I love you. Although the pain feels like it will never go away I embrace it. I deserve it. I have to know that I will never forget you. But it is hard. It is an ache like I have never known. It is an irreparable irrecoverable ailment because nothing can bring you back. The loss seems insurmountable today. Sometimes I want to join you. Today I need to. I want to look into your kind warm eyes and lie on the bed with you next to me. I wish I could see you one last time. I have to tell you all the things I never did. I would have told them to you one day. But then you left. And I didn’t have the chance. I have so much regret locked up inside of me. Today it consumes me. I feel like I am losing my mind. If I say them out aloud I am scared you will not hear them. And my words will linger in the air taunting me and dancing in front of my eyes. The words will say they could not find you. They will say you are not there. Not listening. Not caring. I want to move on and I want to accept. I have to. I can’t carry on like this. Sometimes when I miss you most my mind plays tricks on me. It reminds me of the times we argued, the awful things we may have thought. The resentment. The anger. And I feel guilt. I start to think I was not there for you. That had I been there it could have been different. Deep down I have to accept that is not true. I was not important enough. I could not have changed reality. Life was too hard. Life was too painful. You had to escape. You entered into another world without the hurt, the wretchedness, despair and desolation. Where are you now? Do the tiny birds sing to you every morning? Does the coffee smell fresh when you pour it? Do you feel the earth under your bare feet as you glide across the fields, with your beautiful hands outstretched to the long grass? Does the sand slide through your fingers as you kneel by the sea looking out at the sunset? Does the wind blow your hair the right way? Do you ever think of me?

The power of projection

I feel so trapped. This is destroying me. All I think about when I wake up in the morning is what I did wrong and whether I deserved this to happen. Whether this is pay back for all the hurt I have caused in the past. I am not working properly, I am not eating properly and I am not being honest about the pain that I am feeling. I try to make jokes about it, or listen to the advice I am being given, but ultimately I know my self-confidence and self-assurance has gone. He was a friend and I trusted him. I never trust anybody. I thought that I could be open and honest with him about my hopes, fears and dreams for the future. I didn't feel ashamed about my past when I was with him and I thought I touched a part of him deeper than the surface he presented. I thought I saw something and knew that the man we saw on a daily basis was not the real thing. It was the person that he thought everybody wanted to see. It wasn't super cool, or charming, or 'sic-dude', charisma was meaningless. Although I was attracted to him, it felt deeper. I thought I had found somebody whom I could relate to and who would be a friend for a very long time. I didn't know that I would become physically attracted to him, I just knew that underneath the hard and troubled exterior was a kind soul - a pained and hurting part of him - a part that had been covered up and built upon for many years. I guess the 'always wanting to please/to help/to make others feel good about themselves' part of me took over. I saw somebody in pain and I wanted to make it better. At the same time, I made myself feel stronger. I saw what a positive influence I could have on people and that helped boost my low self-esteem. I started laughing more, thinking deeper, and forgetting the old me. I started to believe that in the future I could be happy and would be, although I didn't know how, where or who with. Quite suddenly I felt good. My relationships improved and my commitment to life. Then I entered limbo. A limbo where I didn't feel safe. I felt scared and I felt hurt. I was ashamed and embarrassed about how I was feeling and I started to doubt my prior motives, my actions and my words. I knew that I had been using my relationship with him to prop myself up - he had given me confidence, support, and allowed me to connect with a deeper me. That has gone. I feel weak, and I feel sad. I feel sad a lot of the time, but I don't cry. I don't cry because to cry is weak. I don't want to shed any tears for him. I can't. If I do then I have nothing left. However, all I want to do is cry. I want to cry with anger and frustration at myself. I want to cry with anger and shame about how I feel about myself. I want to cry with rage and anguish that he ever came into my life. I want to curse those who love me for allowing a relationship to develop. I want to beat myself up for not letting this go. Most of all, however, I just want to sit in a dark corner and weep. I want the tears to cleanse away the pain, the fear, wash away all the uncertainty that has crept back over the last few months. The worst part of this is that I don't understand. I don't understand. I don't understand. I utter those words again and again - everyday I ask myself why. And then as if my own pain is not enough I worry about him. About how he is feeling, why he hasn't been in touch and what is going on. I wonder whether the deeper part of him has closed once again and the 'slick', 'cool', 'fuck man' mentality has returned. I think about the evils of money in this world and the pain it ultimately causes. Why can people talk the talk and then never walk the walk? Are we all deluded? Or are we just innocently confused? And then I am grateful. I am grateful for the love and support I am getting. I am ashamed it isn't enough - I want more. I need an explanation. Shame is an awful component of life. It is harmful and self deprecating, but it is there. I want to let it go, hand it over, and be strong. I feel embarrassed. Embarrassed that I spilt out my truth to somebody, spoke honestly and was rejected. I think I made him feel pressured. I made him feel pressured when he was too vulnerable, too fragile, and too troubled. I never meant to. There was no pressure. Friendship felt more important. It was my insecurities and I know that. I know now that I acted rashly. I saw something for more than it was, but there was no reason not to. I idealized about something that would become turbulent and damaging. That would impact on me in ways I did not foresee. I want to know why. I think I know why and yet I feel like a child in a dark room who can hear things moving, but can't see them - who feels panicked and in danger. A child who is crying for help - who knows their cries can be heard, but who is being ignored. I can't accept this and yet I know I can't move on until I do. I know many of the feelings I am having are harmful and weighing me down. I am drowning and I know how to swim, I just can't make myself move my arms or my legs. It is too painful and I am too ashamed.

I don't understand.
Yet maybe I do.
This is the power of obsession.

Harvey Julian Dante Kant

The Misery

The Misery was like a searching homeless heatwave. It started at my toes, wrapped up my feet and tingled onto my legs. Before I could take control I was up to my neck in it. The desolation leeched off me and begged into my mind for some sanity. It sucked at my mouth like a passionate kiss after months apart. But there was no love. It was hungry – eager for my soul. It wanted to absorb the remaining happiness and hope from my open mouth. The wretchedness licked my tears as they cascaded down my face. As the angry heat surfaced on my wet cheeks the Misery gained momentum. Like a pan of oil being shown a hot flame, it bubbled and spat at me. Misery shows no mercy. It is an invisible boa constrictor compressing your lungs, as you gasp and gulp down air into the last remaining air pockets, hissing and taunting as you resist the urge to sink to your knees and bury your face in your shaking hands. And then it was gone. It left a quivering mess behind, who lay on the floor wailing, like a naked baby on a cold marble floor. I was infected and the Misery had moved on – off to be a parasitic weight on another victim’s shoulders.

Today I saw your face

The anguish is alive
The rhythm is rough
The grasp is unyielding.

It slithers up my back
It slows on my shoulders
It tightens around my neck.

We stumble into mist
We struggle arm in arm
We bow our heads in grief.

How is life so unfair
How did it come to be
How can I set you free?

Can you look down and see
Can you feel calm and be
Can you remember me?

I focus on my truths
I smile at those I see
I weep for treasures lost.