However, her history never goes away. Even buried deep, it has a way of making itself known. In great happiness, it attempts to guard her. In great sorrow, it attempts to slay her.
I hurt myself today
to see if I could feel
I focus on the pain
the only thing that’s real
Sometimes she controls her history. She asks for pain so the hurt inside will lose its consuming focus. Internal becomes external and is much easier to grasp:
Her eating disorder of her teen years. Her rape in Spain in her 20s. Her heartbreak in her 30s. Her feelings of inferiority throughout life, each decade marked by grand injury, now marked by the cane.
Suppressed but now addressed, she allows herself to cry.
What have I become, my sweetest friend?
For those moments, over his lap or clutching the desk, she is complete. The complete woman — past, present, future — with no part carrying more weight than the other. In those minutes, she comes to terms with her shuttered history and understands how it fits with who she is now and who she will become.
In her tears, she keeps herself.
If I could start again
a million miles away
I would keep myself
I would find a way
We would not be who we are, without the struggles and thorns that ripped our wings from us. While that might be a relief- we would be less dynamic and complex.
This might be my favorite thing you have written, not because of the honesty or lyrical quality, but because of the hope and understanding that this TTWD gives us.
Mad Props as usual Queen a Hawtness.
“…without the struggles and thorns that ripped our wings from us.” I love the way you’ve phrased that, but perhaps our wings have just been torn? A little tattered? In need of minor repair?
It is the most terrifying thing I’ve ever shared here, if I am to be honest. I am showing that vacated corridor to people and…it’s hard. It’s obviously not something that I think about often, but words, actions, people sometimes rekindle the memory.
I am sure you understand.
I should also add, this is only a very small part of why I do TTWD. I don’t often ask to cry. I don’t often feel the weight of history, and I needed this long before time left its mark. (Just wanted to clarify before any well-intentioned person jumped all up in my business.)
XX
Uffff!!!
That song touches me particularly…
Sometimes, the only thing real is pain, and also the only thing we are able to feel in some specific moments… :/
But in the end i think everyone is able to find a way out…
A pleasure to read you again!
http://anewworldforsweet.blogspot.com/
Reznor’s words and Cash’s performance kill me. It’s gotta be one of my top 5 favorite songs. (Today at least. Subject to change.)
Checked out your blog, Sweet, and even read it in its native language. Beautiful poetry.
XX
This enlightened me, spoke to my heart, and moved me to tears.
Welcome, sparrow (I don’t think I’ve seen you here before?). I’m happy it spoke to you. Hugs for your tears.
XX
This is one of the most beautiful and saddest things I ever read. And heard. With such tender grace did you address this raging hunger in our blood. To be whole.
That’s only the second time I’ve made it thru that JC video. That song & him singing it. My dad was huge fan. Losing JC was like losing him all over again. But I did it cause you did it. You faced it and you wrote it. I am so touched by this in so many ways.
To be whole, yes, and to allow ourselves the terror of being such.
Thank you, Emen, for this comment which puts to rest some of my fears about posting this in the first place. Your dad must have been quite a man — a JC fan and someone to inspire such emotion in you.
XX
That was a moving performance and says so much more than the mere words.
I would like to think that our essence is forever present. Sometimes things happen that obscure it or distract us. Diminished but never destroyed hidden but never out of reach.
TTWD has a tenderness not easily understood from the sidelines. That tenderness is evident in your words here and throughout you blog.
Cruel
I hope I do the tenderness justice. I often write about body fluids and parts, but beneath it all…I hope there is tenderness.
And I like that…perhaps obscured but present. It’s a healthy way to look at it.
XX
Pink,
Johnny Cash touched people with his music, you touch people with your writing. If he was here, I’m sure he’d appreciate what you have to say.
He’d probably just say, “Hello, I’m Johnny Cash.”
Thanks, D.
he does
“i will let you down /
i will make you….”
…spoken like a beast caged by frail & fragile bars.
m’eh – i got free a long long long time ago – i think it was when that man molested me at such a tender age – just been waiting…
This is the most poignant post I have seen in a long time. It explains why some relish pain.
It definitely explains why I sometimes ask to cry, ask for it to be almost more than I can take. I do not like pain, really, even when I need it. But I use it. Perhaps others use it for different reasons?
Thanks, Bogey. I’m pleased that you found something in this post that resonated.
XX
“tis not the wind that determines our port
but the way we set our sails”
ella wheeler wilcox
I like grit, I like love and death, I’m tired of irony. … A lot of good fiction is sentimental. … The novelist who refuses sentiment refuses the full spectrum of human behavior, and then he just dries up. … I would rather give full vent to all human loves and disappointments, and take a chance on being corny, than die a smartass.”
― Jim Harrison
I’m not sure what to write here, but I can’t read something moving like this and say nothing. It’s wonderful how freeing this thing can be, if only to give us that one moment.
It functions as so many things. An expression of love. Discipline. Need. And therapy.
Thank you, Lea.