Diary of a Human (4 page)

23

DIARY OF A HUMAN

3
Spring

3.0//sunflower

Daisies are the friendliest flower according to Meg. The color of a rose contains its own weighted baggage; a rainbow of possibilities from which to pick. Lilies and posies are the final flower to touch cool, pale flesh.

But I am a sunflower.

Attracted to your brightness, I cannot take my eyes from you nor break my glance to see the bitter realities that surround me.

The Moon holds no control over my being despite the rising and withdrawing of tides that crash around my body as I sink deeper into this quicksand of vulnerability.

You are my sun, the essential nutrients required for me to blossom and stand tall. These roots may seem buried deep beneath rock and bone, tangled and entwined to a certain future; but where the sun shines I too will follow.

You have given this flower feet to freely move and survive in a barren wasteland of silted sand, nothing stable on which to cling. Brilliant, yellow, thick and strong I bravely stand while the loose gravel at my toes crumbles and falls away. But I look to you, never down.

3.1//heavy t
raffic

These familiar surroundings offer no comfort. I find comfort nowhere. I find no comfort. Nowhere can comfort be found. Found not is comfort. Comfort is not found. Comfort has been lost.

I am lost.

I stand now at a crossroad, my compass never pointing North. Staring up at starless night with only the advice of well-wishers commonly referred to as friends. My bare feet are bruised from 5lb. weights and tip-toeing the fine line between Love and Hate. Obsession and the familiar, lingering perfume of Distance. Static cling and a fabric softener called Independence. The Snuggle Bear will not endorse my product though.

I failed you and myself. Ignored the product placement and years of past test studies, opting to ignore the dirty laundry when your own sweet scent was so fresh and livid on my pores.

Looking left, right, then left again I should cautiously creep across this next road. But my heart tells me to play in heavy traffic.

3.2//To Do list

For Today:

1) Save the world...again

2) Save the receipt from that impulse purchase intended to fill the
             
 
emptiness

3) Make a difference in someone's life

4) Make a new friend

5) Make dinner

6) Smile at the people I pass on my walk to work

7) Smile at my competition's misfortunes

8) Count my blessings

9) Count my shoes

10) Go to the park to enjoy the sunshine

11) Go to the tanning bed

12) Rescue a stranger in distress

13) Rescue me from myself

3.3//unexpected s
enses

I sit and stare hard. Taste the air. Smell the noises around me. The carpet beneath swinging, seated feet feels like a home so foreign, but brings such comfort. Tired white ground. Flowers speaking with silent intensions. I wait.

Pictures of a past not really of my own, but close enough to remember waxed wooden boards and soggy green grass. Joy, sweat, anticipation, expectation, disappointment, the final shot at the buzzer misses its target. I always miss you.

3.4//l
etter to no one

I drowned in my bathtub tonight. I stared intensely at the cigarette that burned away between my wrinkled fingers and imagined pushing the embers into my skin. I pictured cutting myself, on my thighs, my inner arms, or merely slicing away at the flesh of my breast.
Earlier that day I thought about becoming anorexic so that I could control one thing in my life.

A hairdryer in the tub or maybe my new laptop that sang Sarah to me, perched atop the toilet lid. Maybe someone would take noticed of the scars and bruises or how my body seemed to be swallowing itself up.

I pulled the plug to let the water drain and thought about not leaving that place. How long would it take for someone to find my body? Would I be nothing but rotting flesh? I felt the water drain around me and felt as though my body could leave along with the now-cold water. I wished I could melt away and slip unnoticed into the pipes and exist deep beneath the ground.

But I opted for sleep instead.

3.5//The Art of Lying

Women are lies.  The art of lying…the art of laying…is their trade.  She told me stories with far different endings than months ago.  I felt the pain, but did not let on because I too, am adept at lying – to myself.  Telling myself that if only, that one day, some day, things will be again as they were
. 

I am the master of lies – to myself.  But not every story has a happy ending, not every princess needs rescuing – by me at least – and so I will tout my battered armor and seek the solace of another princess in need. But not yet.  Because the lies are still fresh on my tongue and in my ears.  I am earning my battle wounds.  Scars to tell over a brew, scars of green eyes and warning signs. 

I can see my form becoming mutilated under the knife of her skillful tongue, but I daren’t move for fear of losing any type of feeling.  Because with her I feel.  When she shines it is brilliant and I am bathed in warmth and caresses.  When she doesn’t, the bitter cold whips and stings its icy needles deep into my core.  But I feel.  And without my skillful liar, I would be void of tears and smiles.  And the smiles are worth all the tears.

She’s just a girl.  But I gave her my heart.  And now there is a gaping hole in my chest where there should be life.  My knuckles are bloodied and raw, but I do not feel the ache for flesh and bones are just this. There is a far more fresh wound in that muscle about which the poets rant.

I laid on the floor of my bathroom tonight and stared so hard at the ceiling light that it didn’t make sense.  Just light and shapes.  My eyes filled with tears, but I didn’t blink them away and instead enjoyed the fogginess that they provided.

The hot tears were spilt, rivers down my cheeks, the sobs in violent bursts, caught in my throat, burning in my chest.  The greatest love is yet to come.  And maybe it’s this current love that makes me so blind – lets me so easily discard the seemingly innocent bystander and still want the criminal.  I am better than her, but am I better without her
.

The sun is shining today but I hide away in my retreat.  My stomach cries for nourishment, but I will deny it any pleasurable company until my heart ceases to cry.  The one thing I can control – holy anorexia.  Hello ribs, my dear battle armor…where have you been hiding?  Underneath warm, nurturing rolls of flesh, now to be exposed as jutting tissue and lanky limbs.  It will stop someday.  This too shall pass. 

I am better than her. 

I will be better without her. 

I will be brilliant without her. 

As soon as I get over her.

3.6//love hangover

I woke up this morning with a hangover…from love.  They didn’t know I had seen her; they wouldn’t be able to handle the truth.  Standing on a cold, lighted sidewalk, staring up at the night sky to my favorite constellation forming the shape of one woman.  Waiting lifetimes to hear her voice, to hear those words and feel her body rushing towards mine to melt in an embrace. 

I am an addict.  I’m addicted to the feeling of being in love, of feeling loved.  But I’m addicted to Feeling as well.  I know I should keep my distance, to stay away from this darkness that keeps me from recovery.  But I only feel with her. 

She is my razor blade that cuts so easily through this mortal flesh; she is the dull ache in my belly from not eating for weeks. She is salty tears that stain my sullen cheeks; she is the raw flesh of knuckles that has danced with concrete walls.  She is the cigarette ember that burns my skin, she is drowning in this bathtub of emptiness. 

I drift through this day, moment to moment void of connection, void of solace.  I sleep, but I do not find rest.  Tangled, sweaty sheets that wrap around waning limbs.  I know I am slipping away.  It’s not just this body, but my essence as well.  Who am I and What am I becoming.  I am a shell of my former self, defined by the moments in which the Day decides to shine upon me. 

I am the Moon. 

And I have vanquished the Sun, but now all the planets have collided against me. 

3.7//mutilated flower

She loves me.  She loves me Not.  I love her and she loves her and she loves me.  And I will never escape this triangle of tangled hearts if I do not let go of my past and a shadowed future -- a future that cannot exist because life is not meant to be spent wearing blinders or never tasting the ripeness of a forbidden fruit.  And I will not be second best. 

I stare at this tiny piece of blue plastic and will it to ring.  I pace through the names an
d figures calculated out for me
and pause. 

I always pause. 

But I cannot give in.  Must stand strong.  I owe it to a delectable, delicious, delicate piece of fruit.

But more importantly, I owe it to myself.

3.7//happiness is fleeting

What one can possess on a single day can be so easily replaced by something else the next.  I had lain in bed, cloaked with happiness and positive en
ergies, sheltered from all except
the sunshine streaming in through billowing curtain dressings. 

             
The next morning I lay in bed, smothered with angst and confusion, the sun no longer present, my heart and mind cast in shadow. 

A sunny, irresistible accent.  A stale, monotone rasp. 

A morning filled with two minute naps, and the scent of fresh soap. 

A night filled with men who possess sharp knives and exploding skies. 

Bodies of water in which to toss sticks and stones, holding hot hands on a humid afternoon, ignoring the stares of those much older than ourselves, because we are the wiser. 

I am wiser than that.  I am better than that.  Experienced enough to know not to trust my heart to this Devil. 

Again.  and Again. 

There is no trust with an ice cream connoisseur.  Because I am only vanilla ice cream.  And I need to be mint chocolate chip.  And I owe it to myself to be chocolate chip cookie dough. And I may love her yet, but I love myself as well.  I love myself enough to not be a consolation prize for she who reaches for the One only I can have.

There is a Love you reserve for only One.  History may repeat itself, but this Love does not.

29

DIARY OF A HUMAN

4 Summer

4.0//It’ll do

A songstress softly croons in the background and I am acutely aware of my surroundings, my body naked and tangled in sheets perfumed by an intoxicating memory.  The room filled with the soft flickering glow of candles drowning in waxed tears.

And I held her.  And she spilt hot tears onto my exposed skin.  Holding her, sharing and owning the pain that only another woman can know.  Because she is punished for being beautiful.  “I shouldn’t have gotten myself into that situation….” she mumbles, trailing off into my bare flesh.  And I silence her excuses and reasoning and blame, capturing her lips between my own, her salty tears mixing with mine as well.

And I’ll never shower again for fear of losing this scent.  Because everything is so clear now. 

Deliciously rugged arms.  Defined collar bone.  The gentle dip of her waist.  Jutting hip bones, peeking out from low-rise pajama bottoms. 

Because she is sunshine and rainbows and puppy dogs.  And she may not be The One.  But she’s the One for me right now.

4.1//short l
ived

You feel her shake against your body as the hot wasted tears flow down her cheeks.

They always shake when you break their hearts.

“I hate you,” she murmurs as she rides your fingers, unable to look into your eyes because she know
s that is when she’ll crumble.

You lick her tears away, running your tongue along her neck, tasting the salt on your tongue and crave more despair.

4.2// do or don’t

I sat at the bar and glanced nervously at my watch, not really noticing the time, but more a nervous habit.  She was late again, but I knew that tonight I would wait for her until the last bottle was opened, the final karaoke song sung, and the final cigarette had been smashed to an unrecognizable bit of pinched paper, each burning ember coaxed to death.

I shifted, unsettled, on my high perch; consciously annoyed that my legs were too long for comfort.  A woman strode into the dimly lit space and my throat tightened up.  Not her.

I coughed anxiously into my shaking, clammy clenched fist, continually readying my throat for the words that would not come so easily.  I love you.

I raked my fingers through the chaotic curls a top my head.  Damn.  So short.  I need to stay away from scissors.  The bottom of my hair tickled the base of my neck and the newly inked tattoo.  A fresh scar that told me I wasn’t really ready to grow-up.

Gotta stop fidgeting.  Take a deep breath.

I lay my hands on my jean encased thighs and stared past the short polished tips to the faded blue material.  $120 for a pair of jeans.  I audibly sighed.  It was so hard to find that perfect fit.  But when you find it, you splurge and put it all on the line.

Some risks are worth it.

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