Frustration

Again we're fighting. Yes again; and I 

Don't know why we are this time. All I know 

Is it's not fair the way you that you can go

And use my weakness against me. I cry;

But even then I try to hide the pain.

It never works the way it should - you see

Through my disguise. Because you just know me

So well. I love you - still, we fight again.

Yet when I turn to walk away from you,

You look at me with angry pain, and say

"Why must you hurt me once again?" The way

You say it makes me stop. I can't hurt you

Again - though wait? I'm lost. Aren't those my words?

You fling them back at me. My unjust words.

I look over my sonnet and sigh. No love is left in the poor form. Only pain. 

When did that happen?

Probably when love became the immortal suffering that man endures through the belief that it is joy. 

How morbid I sound. My own mind chastises it's thoughts before anyone else can hear them and do the same. 

How melancholy my heart has become. Struck time and time again by words and fists that break down the already weak structure standing where once a beautiful flower bloomed. 

That flower wilted long ago. Was plucked, replanted, plucked again. Regrew, was trampled, laughed at, broken. 

I put a fence around the third. It lasted just long enough to flower into a red tulip. The yellow rose of infantile desire only petals in the wind, it's blood white daffodil had followed along the same lines. Dark green stem folding under the pressure of too much giving. 

The crimson of the tulip was swatted at, then stolen. What was left was an image of it. So perfect that I, for a time, believed it to be my own beauty, growing resplendent in the light of another's warm affection. 

When the image collapsed and I realised the theft, I built a wall of ice and fire. A wall no one could cross without express permission. I stood with my final heart flower inside our tower of crystal, and waited patiently for it to bloom again.
This new heart flower was colder to the touch though, and seemed as crystal or glass to me. No matter how I tended it, it would not change, nor grow further than a pink bud. 

And there it still stands, beside me in a tower of ice and wind and fire. Shaken by its predecessors short lives, fearful of the pain - yet yearning, ever yearning, for the exhilaration and joy of another's company.

At times I've seen that glass heart bloom, a ray from some distant heart caressing its frozen petals and turning them to a velvet softness. Opening them so quickly one would think it were always open.

But those distant hearts only get close enough to steal a petal. And, at the pain, my pink lilly closes itself once again, hardening into ice, or stone, or glass... to this day I cannot tell which it is.

There is a heart that often shines down on that lilly of mine, and, when I'm not looking, proceeds to tickle away those precious petals - yet so unconsciously do they do it that I cannot find the will to force them away. Instead I leave them to their petal play, hoping they will realise on their own that the petals between their fingers, while soft, are not unlimited, and will one day run out.

Perhaps then they will satisfy their self with the texture of the leaves, the length of the stem; and once they have entirely dismantled it, either leave my little lilly to its mournful dismemberment, or, as I secretly hope, replace it with a new flower. 

One would hope for orange snowdrops. Though, in honesty, I would perhaps like a rose again. Blue this time, to show the tears that no longer need be shed, and the ice that need not protect from all others. 

The ice wall they lean over now could be dismantled. We could tend our hearts together. . . .

Flowery language fails to negotiate the complexities of my heart though.

"How do you want me to treat you?" He asks. The frustration is palpable, evident in his face. 

Why can't he understand?

"Like me!" the answer tumbles out before I can check my tongue. 

I'm still boggled by it all though. How can someone who knows me so well not know what I mean when I say that I wanted to be treated like me.
To say that he doesn't know what that means is like saying he doesn't know who I am.

Have I really changed so much, so quickly?
Am I really so inconsistent?

In fairness, I understand where he's coming from. I'm just riding on residual pain and confusion.

Even hours later I'm still trying to worked out what happened and why.

Still puzzling over tiny words, phrases. Words I was too angry or too upset to question at the time.

That word 'How' should have been used more. 

But the only one that would come out was "Sorry."

Being told to go made it somehow impossible though.

In fairness, it wasn't the being told to go, but that painful accusation before hand. The one that made me even more confused than I had been previously. The one that made me angry all over again for a nano-second, then hurt with regret, then sting with shame. 

"Just go"

There was more pain in those words than I'd heard for a long time. But the hint of disgust wasn't unfamiliar at all. 

That hint of repulsion and dislike has been clawing at my insides consistently for what feels like months. Looks and words, that's all they are, but the compulsion behind them is like that of wanting to squish an insect, or wash away a dirty mark. That slight turn of the head that is so reminiscent of smelling something bad and realising it must be endured.

Endurance and disgust should not be part of this. 

Perhaps they aren't.

Still, that's how it feels, how it felt, so it must be what I tell.

I dwell for that moment too long on the slight throbbing pain in my chest. A knife being slowly twisted. 

Though I harden myself against the world, he still can cut to the quick with a glance, a word - or lack there of.

Why?

That is what I cannot understand in all of this.

Why has he still such influence on me?

I suppose that's why I can't let any of this go.

Why I still sit here, my leg and buttocks long numb from harsh pressure, my fingers turning blue with the lack of heat, my mind still recounting those minutes that seem like years - not just hours. 

I can't let go, because I can't understand it.

Understanding is the key for me.
Once I understand I can move on.

The frustration comes in that I know I will never understand.

A door has been closed on the conversation now. Perhaps forever. Such is the way when talking with men. Women, girls, boys, children - they will happily revisit a subject, pick it over again (some until there is nothing but bare bones, and then go over a few more times - just to make sure). But men... no, not they. Perhaps this is a stereotype, and perhaps it's very wrong - but in my experience, a man will say something once, and only once, if it is to do with their emotions.

You get a brief window into the true inner workings of a man, and as if it scares them, as if it admits some weakness, they close it over and will not revisit the site again. Unless pushed.

Never push.

You only push away.

You can't push someone closer to yourself.

Think about the physics. It doesn't work.

So the subject will be laid to rest. This will be it's memorial, it's memoir, it's grave eternal. We will pray that nothing comes from its depths, that what was done is done, and wont lead to worse things if left as is. 

Frustration leads to anger.
Anger leads to the need for outbursts.
Lack of outbursts leads to frustration.

Welcome to my circle. 

For now, enough of sadness and anger. 

Go forth with peace and love, and know that the circle is broken by this one secret:
The core of frustration lies with oneself. Once you accept that you have done wrong, you can let go. A breath is all it takes.

Blessed Be xx