The Giver

 I want this memory. Some things should fade. Some should not. I want this, and I don't care if it rips at me.

I snuggled into his chest. The change in voice inflection as the language switched thrilled me. I am damned to relationships with those whose culture barely creeps into mine because of this language, this beauty in difference I feel whenever the meaning of words changes just slightly due to culture. Words are a favorite thing of mine, and hearing how their meaning changes as the language changes is a particular obsession. Nothing stays the same across culture, no matter how hard we strive to find an equivalent. This is particularly pertinent in the spoken word, and it lights a spark in me. The deep rolling tones made me shiver- the language was throaty and beautiful. He was beautiful. 


It would be a mistake. I knew that from the second it began. It was a phenomenal, earth-shattering, beginning of the end, premeditated mistake, and  I was loving every single second of it. Have you ever acted on pure attraction? Knowing clearly that there is next to nothing there outside of the lust? I commit to those who will be good to me, and hold onto the reins of obligation and tradition for dear life. We must not punish the good men, even if we are dead inside. We have been charged to honor them. Perhaps I think I cause so much harm in a relationship that I don't deserve the choice to leave. Whatever the useless psychosocial reasoning may be behind my often twisted behaviors, I knew that just this once, I wanted to try it. I was tired of being in good, dead relationships. I wanted life.  It would not be good, it would lead only to bad, but the journey there would be fantastic. 


Until then, I didn't understand. To truly want another human, to ache for someone else- I had never experienced it before. To hope for nothing and be given something beautiful and lovely to hold onto so that when I couldn't keep going and I needed to smile, I could... but knowing that the smile would be robbed from me as soon as I remembered where I really was, and who he really was... it was twisted, a half gift. I took it. We robbed each other, really, in our fake pretense of love. But does it count if you don't acknowledge it's happening? 


There is so much beauty in an individual. My refusal to come to grips with reality has extended my ability to see this beauty, and I want to write down the gift before the giver comes back again, to steal it away. That way I never forget the intoxication of the delusion that brought me to life. Lust is a drug, and ours kept us alive until morning. Temporary contentment, temporary faith. 


Beauty, manifested in the physical form. Aching desire. Respect and love. Intoxicating touch. Fire. I cannot seem to have these things without losing myself. I know love is the giving of part of yourself to mesh with another, but I have no more of myself to give, nor do I have a wish to. I lost myself, and when I woke up I barely recognized the person I had become. Once the fight had been stripped away, I found pieces of my soul I didn't remember I had. Did I always wish to create? To move and travel and never be bound again? 


 I will hold on to my memories. I will taste them, feel them, fall into them, but I will never walk that road. I am never splitting my soul again. You will never ask me to choose again.  You stole me away, but you will never steal from me again. I am content now with just your memories.

I'm Not Ready

Today, in the spirit of artistic creativity, I decided that the rip in my soul should be photographically symbolized, in hopes that somehow it would help me heal. I don't feel like I'm getting better- I don't feel like I am where I should be, not after all the good that was lavished on me in my past relationship. Surely that much good must cancel out some of the pain when the good finally ends? How can it not? Are the laws of the universe truly that skewed? 

The universe aside, my sister and I spent a long time today dreaming up a scene that would put into pictures the ache I feel in my heart. We knew the snow would be perfect- I feel so dead inside, all of the time. We put time and energy into each strand of hair, each brush of makeup- each bit meant something, symbolized something. We finished getting ready, and I knew I had painted a mirror image of my soul onto my body. It was right. 


The shoot was cold. It made me ache, a deep pain into my bones that slowly sucked away any desire but that of keeping warm. It was strange, how the pain helped the pictures come into focus- in my mind, and on camera. The windchill was -5 degrees. It was a miracle I was able to focus as well as I was. But here's the curious thing- there was so much beauty in the shoot. As I waded through the snow, ruining my perfect wedding dress with its perfect princess design, watching everything I had hoped and dreamed and worked for slipping away like the wind, I felt so ALIVE. So happy, so free- I still ached, the cold bit me, physically and emotionally- but I saw, before the pictures were ever completed, that there was beauty from this pain. An aching, uncontrollable beauty that was going to absolutely lavish more beauty on everything it touched. This disaster, this rip in my soul, has opened a geyser of hope and beauty that never would have been seen otherwise. I am myself again. I have come out alive and full. You see the pain in the pictures, but you also see the beauty- this foolish boy set out to destroy me, and he has only made me more stubborn and more alive. I ache still, I don't know if it will ever stop... but I see the beauty now! I see the hope, and I see the life. I am better now. I am more beautiful now. I have been changed.