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I’m dead with dying
There is an eye I refuse to catch
I was born with knowing
I look and I listen and I discern
I know
You’ve caught my eye
I’m not God
But I know
Tell me everything
The bile and the filth and the worst, pour it
All that will be left will be left behind
Listen to my knowing
Let me catch your eye
My knowing is a reflection
There’s no dream I can’t decipher
I simply know
You tell me what’s the matter
And that’s what’s the matter
A reflection
through kinder eyes than you can’t bear to see
This is my knowing
I was born in January
I am dead with dying
There’s an eye I refuse to catch
It’s the eye of a child
Who won’t let me see
Something terrible happened
Something awful and humiliating
Something that drained my blood from my face my screams from my throat my heart from my chest and
Something that puddled my potty down my leg and between my toes
Something terrible
And I don’t know
Something terrible
And I don’t know
Hollow now
I won’t catch my blue eye that eyes me in the mirror
I was a child born dead with knowing
It was January
It was cold something terrible
Something terrible
And I don’t know
I do not let tears well
That will come later
After the worst
Whatever it is
Always goes one way or the other
There will be a ring
Strangers will answer
I said it’s time for tragedy
And one is here
Listen.
This Medicated Lady is thinking irrationally again.
Irrational because.
I’ve been considering a diet consisting only of those flavored ice pops
especially the blue ones
the ones I like the least
Irrational because.
No one but me looks forward to a psychotic break
Irrational because.
It occurred to me that I’m tired of being medicated
tired of being in need of medication
tired of being in need
tired of being
Irrational because.
Right is what’s right
right as opposed to wrong
right as opposed to left
right as opposed to write
write as opposed to rite
Irrational because.
It makes sense.
Irrational because.
It’s happened. A continuation of a saga I thought was as over as it was going to be.
Maybe it’s predictable. But the wind is knocked out of me and I feel as though my life depends on how I recover my breath.
My ex-boyfriend emailed me, asking how the world was treating me. When I saw his name in my inbox, I started shaking. I felt like crying. Now, I’m just shaken.
How long have I wanted to hear from him. How long have I wanted to tell him off. How long did I ache because of him. I still want to tell him off, but I do not want to open Pandora’s Box. It is a bitch to close. I resent this shit being brought up again. Let me do a brief refresher: My ex was an asshole. He told me in bed that he had no affection to give me. But apparently he had other sinister things to give, which have since cleared up, but who can forgive someone for making them skank.
And so since I’m trying to stay in my right mind and not having a knee-jerk reaction, Bryan has encouraged me to take this to my blog and faithful readers. And I will say this: Bryan is probably one of my biggest supporters when it comes to the menfolk. He does understand that there is a lot of first-hand learning that must go on in a girl’s life. He also said this is a good thing because even though I am stunned, this gives me a chance to control “closure.”
Possible responses:
- No response. Stony silence.
- “Well, ex-boyfriend, the world recently told me in bed the other day that it had no affection for me and then gave me a STD.”
- Part 1: “Fuck.”
- Part 2: “You.”
- Nothing. No stony silence, no tell-off. Just be strong and leave it be. I’m not sure I’m strong enough.
- “The world is treating me great.”
- “The world is treating me great since I got the restraining order.”
- “Well, to tell you the truth, there are no sunshine and rainbows. Let me catch you up to speed: a friend of mine got jumped by a grizzly bear and a “grizzly bear” if you know what I mean, I suffered the loss of my aunt, I have had approximately 1.5 mental breakdowns since we last spoke and approximately 1.5 of them were a direct result of you, I hate peas. I have had a guy leave the country without telling me, had one who wanted to cuddle, one who is very available, one who emailed what is the most confusing rejection slip I’ve ever gotten (to be highlighted soon on this blog, if I get bored), one who was leaving the country to go fight in Afghanistant when I met him, and one who is a therapist…”
- “I’m not going there with you.” (This was his response whenever I wanted to talk about horrible things like feelings and meaning.)
- Send a link to this blog so that technically all responses are delivered.
- Any ideas? Thoughts of encouragement? Truly, I would love your input and I can assure you I have affection for you, dear reader, and I will not give you a STD.
I swallow a deep sob because some things are best swallowed. That’s not dirty, swallowing. Take it down, your medicine.
Kind words make me sad because I can feel the hard edges of them. I can feel the tenderness of my own soul, and I wish I was just a hair harder. Which makes no sense because hair breaks very easily but there is nothing that can be done to make it stronger. It’s already dead.
My aunt died. She’s dead, not dying. I wasn’t around much when she was just living.
What I remember most is how her blue eyes welled with tears when she was in pain and lonely. At the funeral, did they cry for her or did they cry for me? I didn’t go to the visitation. I didn’t want to see her dead. I’d seen her plenty when she was dying. They said she looked as though she were smiling. What I remember are tears that they didn’t see her shed. And then at the funeral, I saw their tears, too, and realized I am maybe only witness to her dying and her death. Her collapse and theirs.
This isn’t a poem, only a thought. This isn’t broken, this is breaking.
At the funeral
it was brief
the service
the prayer
my unmuffled sobs
They were all doing fine
not a sound
and then at the end
my shoulders shook
until everyone’s shoulders shook
At the funeral
they had their suffering too
and then at the end
unmuffled sobs
and shoulders that shook
bored
not hurting anybody
scrolling through the numbers in my phone
I saw the name
had forgotten the name
already
was surprised it was there
in my phone
when she no longer is here
on earth
I pressed delete before I could think
too much
time spent thinking
how long will it be before I recover my breath
Consider it written in stone. The stone at the head of a non-descript grave at a non-descript cemetery on the outskirts of some field in the middle of nowhere. Here she lies.
This is how it will go. Tomorrow, there will be tears. Tomorrow, there will be a long, sad drive home and an even longer, sadder drive back to the place I live.
It’s hard to say how many people will be there. It’s summer, you know, and there will be no church service. I imagine only family and one or two friends will come.
The family will hug me. They will tell me how thankful they are that I went to see her when she was so ill and no one else was able to visit. Able. Inwardly, I will cringe at this word. Inwardly, I will feel hate and spite.
The family will tell me they love me after they’ve told me and each other what a big “help” I was, as if I’d gone to pick up their prescriptions downtown and not sat beside her for hours while she cried because she was in pain and no one else would come see her. They’ll say they don’t know what they would have done without me. Some of them will list all the reasons why they couldn’t come to visit her when it mattered. I will make a parallel list of all the reasons they should have come. My list will be longer and more substantial.
They did not kill her, but they did break her heart. My tears will be for her and for the injustice of it all. Their tears will force me to forgive them, to stifle the outrage I feel, because I, of all people, know guilt and grief.
I wanted her dead and now she is.
It doesn’t have to hurt
for me to like the feel
of shallow skin torn from deeper depths.
Not all cuticles run so deep
but removal
makes the edges of my being warm.
I might go to professionals
who tinker and snip
but I don’t wish for nails that are better kept.
I wish for jagged, uneven splits
to be savored and fantasized about
to be at climax torn.
Ramblings of a Medicated Lady: Words of Woe by Loria Taylor 
Your Sympathies: