A lonely child
Hiding in the dark
Praying to be discovered
But fearing to be uncovered
Why can’t she be more like the rest of us?
They asked
A lonely teen
Struggling to fit in
Praying to be accepted
But fearing to be rejected
Why can’t she conform to society’s norms?
They asked
A lonely adult
Standing proudly on her own
Praying to be comprehended
But fearing to be misunderstood
Why can’t they accept me for who I am?
I cried
I sat curled up on the shower floor –
The darkness broken only by the faint light
From a crack in the door –
Until the warm water turned from cool to cold.
There were still pieces of sadness and shame
Clinging to my skin as I reluctantly stood and
Turned the faucet off, my body dripping regret,
And grabbed a towel.
I think I would rather be alone.
Alone is painful.
Alone is empty.
Alone is hollow and desolate and endless.
But not alone and hiding who you are is exhausting.
And not alone and pitied by those who know is shameful and humiliating.
Yes ~ I think I would rather be alone.
My old friend you’re back.
In such an unwelcome way.
Taken up residence once again
In my heart and in my head.
My casual smile belies the bitter anger
Rising in my blood.
I had come so far.
But we all have our limits.
Invisible tethers designed to keep us
From straying too far from our destiny.
And that’s all it is after all ~ destiny.
She could count her friends on . . . well, she didn’t even need fingers. She was certain the people she knew LIKED her, but the late-night phone call on a Saturday night friend? That she didn’t have.
Do you really wonder why people leap to their deaths? It’s because in a world of 8 billion people, they can’t make a real connection to a single soul. And it’s not their fault. And it’s not your fault either. Not really. On this supercharged, high-pressure, success-driven, always plugged-in highway, some people never quite master the rules of the road – mere passengers in life. And, in their quest for the best, the ones in the fast lane drive right on by without a glance in their rear-view mirror. Each passenger on his own path, each driver worried about her own destination. Neither giving a thought to the basic and indispensable humanity underneath it all.
So, she sits alone every Saturday night. She stopped listening for the phone to ring a long time ago. And she always knows the location of the nearest bridge. It gives her a strange sort of comfort.
I do not meddle in affairs of the head.
I prefer to dwell in the land of the dead.
The murky place ‘tween wake and dream,
Where truth and lies, love and hate all teem.
My life is a lie
I am a façade
Peel back the layers and you will find hollow emptiness
No core, no seed, no evidence of any being
Without the masks I’ve carefully crafted for myself, I am . . . not
Sad souls speak no words.
When lovers turn into strangers, the universe releases a sad sigh and extinguishes a star.
My heart aches and there is an overwhelming emptiness where the sadness used to be.
Watercolor memories
drip from the canvas of my mind
and pool on the surface below,
my life a rainbow
on the sidewalk of my soul.
Emotions in blood stained letters
Spill onto the fresh white page
Breathing secrets unspoken
Hidden truths whispered in words
She tried to open her heart and let them in. But she had built the wall deep and tall and strong. And the harder she struggled to break it down the more she feared the pain of rejection. The thing she wanted most was the thing that would destroy her. So she closed herself up and locked them out and continued her solitary journey in silent still loneliness.
The sadness has returned. That old familiar friend. Uninvited, unwelcome, she sits with me and whispers into my ear about all of my failures and all of my fears. She tells me of the things I cannot do and the things I cannot be simply because I’m me. She smiles her sly smile, knowing I believe her lies. Because I have to believe in something. And she knows it isn’t me.
In that moment, she gave up. The light in her eyes was slowly smothered. She accepted her fate, that cruelest of mistresses. Hearing the voices echo in her ears, taunting her, mocking her. “You don’t have it bad, you ungrateful bitch. You should be thankful.” She sat in her gilded cage, freedom an elusive dream, and wondered if you could die from a broken heart.
Writing frees me, not being able to write confines me. The simple act of putting words to paper, feelings strung together in letters and phrases, is a catharsis that I’ve grown accustomed to. When I go too long without being able to write I feel the weight of my emotions from deep inside, crushing my heart and soul. The quandary is that often times, it’s the same emotions that keep me from writing.
I need to take a short break. To phrase the great band REM “Everybody Hurts” and sometimes we just need to take time to heal ourselves. Unfortunately, this is one time writing won’t help. I’ll try and read my feed but I won’t be posting for a while. But I will be back.
Sometimes you get your heart broken by a lover. These are the times we struggle within; was it something I said – didn’t say, was it the way I looked or the way I smelled? Sometimes we come up with the most outrageous notions just to ease our minds and blame ourselves when really – maybe it wasn’t our fault at all.
Then there are the times we get our heart broken by a friend. I learned very early on not to put my trust in friends just for this reason. If I held them at a distance they couldn’t hurt me as much. But I recently let one too close. Why? Isn’t that the 64 million dollar question. She seemed trustworthy, she seemed interested, she seemed different than everyone else, like she didn’t have an agenda, like she truly cared about me. To my credit I didn’t let her all the way in – I never do. But just enough to break a piece of heart big enough to matter.
She won’t read this, she doesn’t read my work. If she did I wonder if it would even affect her. Our last conversation I told her I needed some time alone and she didn’t even ask what was wrong. If she did maybe she would know how to fix it. And maybe that’s my fault after all.
“It’s lonely when you have an opinion.” I heard her voice before I saw her, sitting on the park bench, shoulders slumped in surrender. I glanced around and realized she was talking to me. Without making eye contact, staring at the ground, she continued, “they say they want you to tell the truth but they don’t, really. They don’t want to know how you really feel. But still, they tell you they want the truth.”
I sat on the farthest end of the bench and quietly spoke, “Who wants the truth?”
She looked at me, eyes opened wide, and her gaze penetrated my soul. “Everyone.”
I really believed in you. With your high moral background and strong family ideals and solid life goals and just crazy enough to come true dreams. You were perfect. Until you weren’t.
Susan Jarreau - Of Dreams and Disasters 