happiness clotting my pen. bleeding on paper impossible. the black curtain falls keeping the words a mystery even to me. my dissociation from the possible disappointment. or in other cases the pain. my mental self defense. a little black curtain.
logical passion
the two things I have magically combined
each tugging at me from different sides
passion pushing me over the edge of the cliff
and logic pulling me back
I’m short of breath,
scared that standing on the edge is my minds delusion
and I’m going to wake up at the bottom of the gorge
not remembering the fall at all
fighting in my head as to where my fear lies
in the actual leap
or missing it…
the adrenaline of the roller coaster has me manic
but the idea that it may or may not be on the track has me screaming
I sat on the sofa in the public restroom foyer absorbing every bit of silence the room had to offer. I felt whole. The loneliness tickled my ears and my heart swelled. I could breathe the air that was only mine. No lump in my throat. Alone is better when I’m actually alone. When I am not obligated to the clock or the social demands of being in public. I need my room, the door closed, and my words. Alone with all the thoughts that drown me when I can’t think them clearly. My emotions are written all over my face and sharing that with everyone around me is not my ideal evening. But sharing them with paper is one of my passions. I feel comforted with each tap of the keys. The screen of the computer the only thing here to see my tear smeared eyes without judgment or demanding an explanation. My thoughts pouring from me faster than I can think them. Reading everything I create and learning about myself as I go. Self-discovery through my impulsive thoughts. I bring myself back to the reality of where I really am. Hiding in a public restroom, not surrounded by the tranquility of my room. I take a deep breath and push myself off of the sofa.
From the outside the wood sided house had once been painted white despite it’s naked appearance. The pain of time and life made the house look as if tears, not weather, had chipped the paint away. The supports for the porch appeared unstable and left the roof at a slant. Only a few shingles remained and there were holes that shined light into the house. The shutters that had endured the life of this house hung awkwardly by a single corner or lay on the ground propped up against the house. The shutters had faded to a dark gray leaving the original color a mystery. This house was full of heartache and anyone who passed could feel the emotional warp that surrounded it.
The front door was wide open and the room on the other side appeared to be black with emptiness. The holes in the roof didn’t shine through this particular room as the exterior view anticipated. The freeway that adorned the front yard came as a later edition to the house with great disappointment to the owners. It seemed that along with the new lawn ornament came the degradation of the house. The need to destroy the hills that were once the view from the front porch brought on a subconscious destruction of the house itself. The owner, now an old man, sits in the corner of what used to be his bedroom in the shadows. He holds a book that tells of the secrets that have turned his home into what it is today. Light shines through the roof onto this book as he reads.
This book speaks of death and where he will cease to be. He gets lost in the pages day after day wanting to grasp onto where she is. The cobwebs that fill the house and the noise from the freeway are invisible to him as he longs to be with her. This book is the closest he has come to finding his way back to her and that is why he reads it every moment that he is awake and dreams of its contents when he sleeps. Over the years he has scribbled on the walls of this room. Over and over you can read:
In your house I long to be
room by room patiently
I'll wait for you here like a stone
I'll wait for you here alone
In this house that used to be his home he has become an old man obsessed with the book. He prays for his deathbed and when that day finally comes he will pray for anyone to take him to heaven. The book tells of heaven on earth and he knows that his life with her was exactly that and now he waits for his heaven in death. He remembers their evenings on the porch with the view of the bruised sky and the wine they drank with their dinner. He can still taste it on his lips and hear her laughter as if it were yesterday. She led him through every moment of his heaven on earth even when they were apart. It was the knowledge that he would see her face again that kept his soul alive. His lungs breathe and his heart pumps just as it did when she was at his side, but his soul drowns in this book without her. The hopes that the book fills his mind with are fading and he begins to believe that with that so will his breath. He feels as if he is drawing closer to her and his mortal demise. As the night creeps in, he runs his hands along the words on the wall:
In your house I long to be
room by room patiently
I'll wait for you there like a stone
I'll wait for you there alone
The tears pour hardest in the evening as if to mark another meaningless day because he did not spend it with her. The night has intruded and now he sits with his back to his corner and waits for sleep. In his dreams he will wander on until his death. Until the two souls that found each other in life can meet again.
As I approached my childhood home, the wind blew my hair in my face. The bruised sky was adorned with fast moving clouds and the grass of all of the houses had grown tall and was unkept. Boards covered windows and graffiti decorated the outer walls of the houses my neighbors had lived in, but my house didn't have boards over the windows or where the door used to be. The wind was violently blowing the curtains that still hung in the windows. It was as if they were hands waving me to the house. My heart began to feel heavy as I walked through what used to be my front yard. The air was cool like before a fall storm. I felt chills wave over my body.
As I entered I noticed that the walls had been painted black and graffiti had been written on them. The whole scene felt surreal, as if I was floating to this place. I couldn’t even figure out how I got here or what I was looking for. Something was pushing me down the hallway to my old room.
The door was still on the hinges and completely untouched by spray paint. It looked brand new. I ran my hand along the door as I entered the room. A few of my books lay on the floor. I bent down to pick one up. It looked worn and the pages were no longer a fresh white, but a dull yellow. I felt a strange connection to this book. I knew it was mine, but didn’t remember the title or if I had ever read it.
A gust of wind came through the room almost knocking me over. With the gust, a wave of all the feelings I had ever felt here came over me. I had gone through the majority of my life in this room. The tears, the laughs, the long talks, and growing up all happened here. The air was thicker in this room than anywhere in the house.
The thunder clapped outside and the rain began to pour. I walked over to the window to watch the rain like I had done so many times before. It was funny. When I cried I could sit in this window and watch the rain and everything would be better. Today all of those feelings of pain and tears rushed over me and looking out the window made it better. It was the ultimate feeling of comfort that I hadn’t felt since I was a kid. I stood in the window for a while and took in all that was left of this place. I got lost in a different time and almost didn’t see it as it was today, but as I saw it so many years ago. The view from this window has changed so much and not just the landscape, but the naïveness that I saw the landscape with has left.
A presence in the once empty room woke me from the trance of the rain and memories that had been flooding me as I looked out the window. I turned to find a shadowy figure with it’s back to me scribbling words on my perfectly white closet door. I didn’t feel comfort or safe anymore. I had felt the depths of my life in this room and it had never phased me, but this shadow of a man left me breathless with fear. I stepped closer to the closet trying to read the words he wrote. He turned to me, faceless, and I froze. The pen he wrote with appeared to be a knife now. I couldn’t make out any features on his face, but I could feel his mocking smile as he stepped closer to me. He stabbed me repeatedly in the stomach whispering, “You did this,” over and over. His hand was on my shoulder supporting me as I hunched over. I screamed in agonizing pain. I could feel my breath escaping my body. Each stab felt more aggressive and the black slowly started to close in on my peripheral vision until I couldn’t see anything at all. I could still feel the tears running down my face and hear my lungs gasping for air. It was then that I realized that I had ceased.
