*** i wrote this piece last year. not up to my writing standards but the subject is real and close to my heart. i’ve decided to become brave and share it with other people. JMM
Le Dance Macabre
Too long it feels, that I’ve been squeezed dry of any words, full of emotions, yet devoid of expression. Tears that bother but will not trickle down my face. Anger that builds but does not erupt. Sadness that depresses but will not prolong its visit. The journey has taken me on one of the most unstable rides ever, but I see no signs yet of slowing down in this life, or giving up.
On my player a song that is best played as the groom waits for his radiant and one and only bride at the altar plays over and over. It’s emotional suicide, but I’m doing it because I feel that eventually, listening to it will lessen my pain.
Le Dance Macabre
Where are you, love? Those who know me will have only one person in their minds. I, because I reckon I know myself better, are thinking of the one too many people who have used me up and packed their bags, never again to return to the emotional baggage counter they have left me to manage solo.
So many people ask themselves after a break up: What did I do to deserve this? You’ve done no wrong. It felt real good to love. It felt real. It felt like bliss cruising down a highway with the sun in your face and the wind in your hair, and your arm crossing his across the gears, hand palm face down on his right leg. It felt like satisfaction walking slowly across the floor, his arm around your waist and his lips in your hair. It felt right as your eyes talked to his. It felt final as you sank into his arms, burying your face into his shoulder, tired but content.
And so you never did anything but want to be with him.
Let me tell you this. Lovers are never the losers. Those that use and abuse and leave, are.
Love, where are you? Your masks are diverse. You carry many faces and I am as confused as they come.
One time, you were my best friend. Pretending to be the one and only companion in life, love meant you across the week, you in my family’s vocabulary, you at the top of my friends’ heads, you in my mind and under my skin. It meant too much, it was too overwhelming, and I became too dependent.
The next, you were rebellion. Succeeding to take my virginity and naivete, love meant confidence overload, you as the little devil that scratched away my conscience, you the hedonistic master, you in my mind but never, ever in my heart. It meant too little, became too abusive, in the light of way too many lessons worth avoiding.
On the next try, you were a pupil. Surprising me initially with your awe, a pupil and mentor relationship gone haywire, love suddenly meant turning the tables and evaporating into thin air, you as the star of search parties, you in my mind, in my duties but never too long in my heart. It meant too many broken promises, too many identity crises, too much U in YOU.
I’d have thought you’d have given up, but then you were the past in better packaging. Disguising yourself as spontaneity and nonchalance, love meant forgiveness in impulsive doses, a chest of too many new acquaintances, too many trips, too many photos, too much drama. Too much of being used up, you were supposed to remain my mind, in my heart, in all my soft spots but now you’re in my acid bed of tears, my physical pain, my lifelong checks and balances.
And now, you are illusion. Influencing me to succumb to my weaknesses, love meant everything I should never have now but should instead work hard for later, it meant bad vibrations, a jailhouse rock disc that would play, stop, and play. Too little of you physically, too little space for our lives to become intertwined, too much ambition, too much of a masquerade – you were in my mind, in my closet, underneath my eyelids on too quiet evenings but as illusion, you being in my heart still seems too much of a mirage.
Love, where are you? Your masks are diverse. You carry many faces and I am as confused as they come. At the next ball, where centerpieces are each a meter tall, and the candles are lit, I will arrive before the moon crosses the sun, before spirits are too high, and before feet start leaving the ground. I will glide across the floor in unaccompanied abandon, and there will be one whose mask hangs from his hand, the glitter on his palms, the ribbons wrapped loosely around his fingers.
Love, he IS there. The next ball will be unannounced, and the waltz will play at midnight. ###
032606 1:22 a.m.
