how things were before

|| some of my words from august & september of 2008 ||

sitting here with you, i don't know how i ever leave your presence --- you are so good for me, you are so good to me. i pour myself out to you, my heart beating on the table between us in this public place, but no one seems to notice. no one but you. this is because you see beauty in me that i cannot see. you love parts of me that i've locked up for years. i look up from the floor of my prison cell and you've walked through the concrete wall. you hold out your hand for me to take and say, come on. you don't belong here anymore. and the freedom i find is so sweet, so fine, i barely know what to do with myself. it's like trying to appreciate the finest gourmet food after eating stale bread for 25 years . . .

tears are running down my face now. (briefly i remember that i am the girl who never cries, and if i do it's 2:30 a.m. in the dark, noiseless.) except now there's nothing i can do to stop my eyes from spilling over. the tears skip over my cheekbones and trail along my jawline. (i have flashbacks to crying in bed, lying on my back, tears strung in my hair like pearls.) i look up and there are tears in your eyes too. you are crying for me, because you feel what i feel and my sadness reaches you. i can barely look at you. i am overwhelmed.

let's get out of here so i can hug you, you say. i have new strength. i don't care about the book-laden college kids trying to write papers (that a part of me is envious of) or the impossibly skinny high school girls in their cable knit sweaters (that another part of me is, sadly, slightly envious of). none of it matters because none of them are you. we have our healthy, independent moments, many of them in fact, but right now you are my world. there is nothing else.

____________

things change, space rearranges itself.

air that once seemed breathable becomes stifling. you go to bed with the furniture of your heart in one place, and when you've woken up, you're stumbling over mussed carpets and bruising your shin on the chair that last night was certainly not there, but over there . . .

____________

the words need to get out, and it hurts. it hurts to say them, and it hurts to hear them. unfortunately there's no escaping the pain unless you just don't talk about things. and so we claw at each other with our words, we claw at ourselves, and after some hours sit staring at the floor with nothing left. we are opponents who want the same thing --- how did this happen? no one is sure, and that's part of the hardship. we both want the same thing, but we're destroying each other in the process of fulfilling it. how did this happen? no one is sure.

and in our rawest state, finally we've chipped away at enough of the anger and the sadness and the misunderstanding and the exaggerated perceptions to remember that kindness exists, love covers a multitude of sins. after being on opposite sides, wounding each other, digging our fingernails into our palms, we unite. all the history and reason; the entire chain of events leading up to this moment; the ways we've been hurt by others in the past that make us retreat from each other; all the small things; the weight of remembering which hinders our moving forward; ---

____________

|| my words today, december 23, 2009 ||

and when i was in my lowest state
my savior heard me

through his eyes i may love myself
in his strength i will walk through today
with his peace i consider the future
by his grace i am alive and free forever

i tell you the truth, friends. the things of this world cling to me: my questions, my disappointments, my doubt. my self-hatred and self-pity. but as i wait for Him to have come and to come again, a weight is lifted from my heart. surely all will be well, even if i carry this sadness to the gate, even if i never know why. i am His and He is mine; all will be well.

|| photo credits ||
top image: emptyspaces
bottom image: laurennicole81