"I trust you because I saw your soul, and upon that I am prepared to gamble all that I am. I guess it is a form of gambling with the self, but you are the only one around here who is even fit to take a punt on. So I either lose by standing still, or take a chance. I always was adventurous. So, how about it?"
He has weaponised his emotional indifference, abusing rather than cherishing my loving emotions. Tears escape my eyes, running away upon my cheeks, leaving my body as if they cannot bear to witness yet another verbal assault. Threats of hateful things are spoken as if he were ordering food from a takeaway menu. Hateful things I can't explain. When they shame you in the assault they feel sure you won't share it or call for help. It just hurts. But in that context, the word 'hurt' holds a lot more meaning than usual definitions. It is a lingering pain, one you can only shake by gaining a greater perspective, by standing back and imaging yourself as someone who loves you. Then you ask, "What would they say about all this? What might their advice be?"
That Bonnie and Clyde costume set shows evil as it always is, standing boldfaced in the light of day with the accoutrements of success. And so what really sold the costumes our neighbours wore, was neither fabric, nor buttons, nor thread - yet the cold-hearted assholes that they truly were.
Moss-laden bricks of grey-orange, fitting as guards on the threshold. Behind the fool’s-ancient wrought-iron gates. Where rows upon rows of crumbling mounds stood in various interpretations of upright, their pores bathing in light from an ill moon, ailing. Porous trees hunched over most of the void spared by the sickening light’s expanse, plunging the rest in healthy shadow. The place echoed.
To enter, I must skirt around a pile of wet leaves. Today there is no weather; there is no wind, just howling. The temperature is of a mild apparition and so I hear the winds company more so. The leaf barbs that bar nefarious entrance are of little consequence to my apt overage and the grey-orange guards do little but deposit their dust upon me and my cloth.
Something flashed beneath the surface of his hardened expression and I hurried to investigate the sudden shift. It was too late, the emotion disappeared before I could identify it, like reaching desperately for an escaped balloon; the string dangling so tantalizingly close but the wind pushed it away and it's lost forever.
I love how words weave together and show our deep truths. We say this is body chemistry, it is, and I think for that reason I'm in my element with you, that you bring out my elemental nature, the part of me that is hidden to others. To say that those are puns is a sort of shallow take on it. For me their connection is as poignant as ours.
"Hope is often spoken of as if it were a butterfly upon wing; when in truth, to survive this world, it is a charging rhino with head down. Hope is the most bad-ass thing around."
We sit there, talking, she and I.
Only interested in keeping the conversation going - heaven forbid there be a pause...
She says something - followed by my pretendedly interested response.
I say something - and she politely laughs.
Neither of us talking about the things that really matter:
Our deepest secrets, our hidden pain, or what brings us true joy...
There we are: completely blind to how superficial this conversation really is.
Abolition never happened, slavery was simply exported off-shore by means of exploitative monetary policy backed up by the military. These are policies living people voted for, that living people enacted, people of all ethnicities in the modern world. If we could take even a fraction of the momentum toward fairness and restorative justice the world has right now and put it toward the people of developing nations that are living as slaves right now, either paid slave wages or trafficked as if they were livestock, we'd have a real chance to create a better world. Will we work to let our slaves go free, to live lives of joy? Will we let go of our claims to their resources? Will we take the hard steps into a word that really has no slaves? It's time to take off the entitlement tinted glasses and see the world how it really is and our roles in it. I'm an abolitionist, how about you?
I never experienced grief this bad before. It all started when I lost my mother, my world and my hero. It sneaked up on me quietly and took me under its arms in an instant. Every memory played like a song in my head, repeating itself for what seemed like forever. I was lost mostly because I had lost a big part of me. I couldn't get that part back and I wanted it so bad as my life depended on it but it was all gone, vanished in thin air. I can't say it got better but it did get easier. At first, I thought grief was something bad that takes you ten feet under but soon I learned that it was just the price we had to pay for loving someone.
At the end of colonialism, when we were in an era that accepted that the money-nexus days were numbered, there was an interesting reversal of roles. It was somewhat as those renovation shows with a team of builders and a client, the developing world was the client and the developed world's task was to listen to their needs and find solutions in keeping with their culture and wishes. They had been Cinderella, now it was time for the rich industrialised nations to act as fairy godmother.
Tears rolled down, wetting every part of her cheek. Her eyes pleaded for Succor and help, albeit that she knew no one was coming. There was only darkness as her own demons haunted and strangled her. She was suffocating. In the pain of abandonment she almost forgot how to feel. She desired amnesia so that all this suffering could fade away, fade and allow memories of laughter to soothe her, to restore peace in her life.