// “Loving you was easy…
Loving you was easy. It’s the saying goodbye that’s the hardest part. The letting go of the shell. Something us in our shells here have to continue doing and putting meaning to everyday. This month is. pain. It’s hard to breathe as the waters rise&rise. The ones you love, who loved you — their hearts start bleeding…continue bleeding. Half of us fashion the mask to wear. For protection, for survival. But, my God Bub, each time— I do not know how to mask a bleeding heart. So I retreat. And the people who love me, who loved me, they understand. They give me grace in the process, they give comfort in the space between. To know when I am able to rise to the surface again—there they will be.
It hurts seeing how we change. How this changes a person. How it changes you, me. I desperately tried so hard not to fashion a new mask. To make a new one when you left. though I admit to cope I did so at first. I put the mask on and went back to work. Because I had to stop… hurting myself more. Because the pain. The pain was never going to go away. There is no numbing this pain. A pain. Any pain. // “Isn’t it funny to live in a culture that thinks this to be possible?”//
I pull away from social media. Breaks are good for mental and creative clarity but I feel. more disconnected here. Like it’s a hit of the drug I crave the most—connection—but it is nothing of the sort. there is no good high here. no sustainable means here. of connecting here. // “True, authentic connection.”// It’s all hurry. Like, comment, heart, (fake) smile. Like our consumer-driven world, it feels like forever 21 in here. too many choices. too many channels. too many faces. half-told truths. half-told lies. Like Heathrow’s airport except I can’t see your face. Hear your voice. Touch. you. // “So how do I trust. you… with this bleeding heart?”//
// “Bub, where are you?”//
I don’t recognize the man I love anymore. Or perhaps the one face I knew of his when he was with me… it’s gone now and when I see him in this physical world I only see this shell. Like… well, I don’t want to say what it’s like… I just miss my magnolia tree… Oh, trees. With their grace of bearing such weight of time. Of understanding. To talk. To listen. // “When did we stop listening?”// When did we stop talking? No, I don’t mean, “How’s the family?” or “How are you doing?”. to the people who pass us by every few full moons. But to the person across from you who told you to close your eyes and dream. A white dress in front of a desert’s sky. Now you can barely look into his eyes. and just. be. vulnerable. Raw. Shedding the layers. The faces, the masks. The make believes and false pretenses. And the dreams that were once being walked into realities now… // “I’m tired.”// I’m tired, too…
I’m sorry. For the rains that start to flood you. us. They slowly rose above your mouth so you could no longer speak. Above your nose so you could no longer breathe. I’m sorry we let go. But maybe. maybe. Maybe this is the only way to find our way back to ourselves. For when we were together we always tried to save the other. Splashing and splashing. Running and splashing. Perhaps if we surrender to the waters, they’ll show us how to be free again one day. Perhaps in letting each other go, we can learn to swim parallel to the shore…
For there’s a current out here. There’s a current that always takes me away. in October.