2016 Archive: The tomb

… And in that moment she knew, it was too late.

She loved him. She loved everything about him. He was like a drug that kept calling her back. Looking into his eyes was like falling backwards into an endless ocean.

He took her breath away and filled her with fear at the same time. He was fire and ice, a flood and a drought… A thunderstorm on a sunny day.

He looked at her with such admiration and awe. She knew loving him would be like being caught in a rip tide.

His genuine love seemed unquestionable, but she knew… She knew she wouldn’t have to fight another woman for his heart. She would never lose him to anything but himself.

She knew she had no chance at winning that war. At times she got glimpses in his eyes of the demons he wrestled; In unexpected flashes she’d witness the hell he fought so silently.

No amount of love would pull him from those depths. No positive words could drown out the incessant abuse playing like a broken record in his head no one but him could hear.

All of these things pierced her heart like an arrow every single time. But still, she loved him for all he was, in spite of everything he could become.

Bliss ended quietly and suddenly. One day she looked into those deep ocean eyes… And saw nothing.

He was gone. He had left her without a word and yet he stood there in front of her.

The cut was so precise, so sharp, she didn’t realize the ribbons caught on the wind were fine slices of her still beating heart.

She beat on walls of granite to no avail. He had become a tomb. A cruel shell of the man she loved so desperately.

On her knees, through her tears, she watched him walk out of her life forever.

… And in that moment she knew, it was too late.

2016 Archive: Toxins

They were a beautiful natural disaster, like a tale older than time itself.

He was explosive, like the fires of hell trapped in the setting sun. Every part of him was radiant, lovely and dangerous. You could feel the heat for miles away.

He sent tremors through her soul, but she couldn’t look away. She was slowly turning to ash in the glory of his destruction.

She was implosive, like a cosmic black hole. She drew him in and swallowed the brightest light in his soul. Her silent implosion drained the color from his face and brought him to his knees at her feet.

She was beauty, she was darkness and she filleted his soul with skillful precision.

Like all imbalanced perfections, they were magnetic and toxic; addicted and repulsed.

Each one’s lips held the kiss of death for the other…

House Fire…but not.

I’m reflecting on the monumental shift my kids and I just experienced & are still trying to find our footing from.

In trying to wrap my head around it, I’ve been searching for words, terms…language in which might communicate the breadth of it all.

Closest thing I’ve come to is…we fled a house fire.

(Except it wasn’t a house fire, not exactly)

So, in saying this what I mean is more like… A slow moving fire that threatened the safety of myself, kids and proverbial “home”

I saw smoke miles away, but when verbalizing my concern, was called crazy. “You keep yelling ‘fire’ when no one else can see flames. You’re probably some sick arsonist looking for attention“

And yet things slowly started crumbling around me. The fire had spread deep into the foundation, it was smoldering in the walls. Faint wisps of smoke could be smelt. But I was told there was no fire so often, by so many people, I doubted what I saw and went on like I was the crazy one.

And then, one day, the fire erupted “without warning.”

What do you grab? (Your kids lives are the most important, obviously.) But if you could take only what fit in a pickup truck before you hightailed it to safety…really, what do you choose?

Once you make the heart wrenching decision of ” do I pack the kids memorabilia, or those items I’ve had since childhood” then the question is, where do you go?

{{Keep in mind, everyone’s confused as to why you’re fleeing a house fire that they don’t think ever ignited. Remember? You’re the crazy one who kept yelling wolf then all of the sudden came running out of the woods with no wolf in pursuit.}}

What do you do for money? All you have is enough to survive for 2 weeks. You can’t run to a shelter & claim sanctuary over an “imagined house fire.” Half your family thinks you burnt you’re own house down out of spite. You can’t get a job that allows two babies on your hip 24/7 & can’t afford child care.

There are walls everywhere you turn.

You’re still smoldering from barely escaping the flames that would have taken your very life.

But you can’t yell “FOR GOD’S SAKE SOMEONE HELP US!! WE JUST FLED A HOUSE FIRE!!”

Because technically…it wasn’t even a fire at all.