Stirrings on the wind

Letting go is never easy.


What an understatement.


I walked home last night trying to let it all go again. The pain, the anger, the frustration, the fear, the disappointment... I guess it kinda worked. I feel okay now. 
Not great. I wont go that far. But OK. 
It's nice to feel like I can cope again to be fair.


I guess it helped that I'd had hours of comfort and fun with two amazing guys, then came home and found a slice of chocolate birthday cake waiting for me in my bedroom. 
Just seeing that people care can do the trick sometimes.
Actions really do speak so much louder than words.


The only thing is, I'm still trying to work out how to not slip back down again.
I've worked out the clawing my way back out of the black hole part - now I need to work out the not getting sucked in part.
Not as easy as it sounds...


If you think that escaping the gravitational pull of a black hole sounds easy that is...


ANYWAY!!


So, what have I got to tell you?
Oh, my, word! So much!!


First of all - a delayed but very warm welcome to Mathieu!! I can't believe that I've been bloging and haven't said that already!
I mean it though - it's amazing having him here!!
We went on Saturday to collect him from the airport, got there two hours early - literally arrived as he boarded the plane in Paris... Over eager maybe?
We hadn't even slept! Any of us! Me and Li had kinda passed out for half hour on my floor (loooong story) at around 3.30am... then got up at 4am, he went home and got ready, I got a shower and met him at his at gone 5am. 
Oh dear - the worst/best part of this shenanigan was that we went in suits. Li even had a sign saying "Flajolet" and sunglasses... we looked sooo cool/stupid/funny!


I can't believe he came over - I really can't.
I mean - I'm THRILLED that he's here! And I don't want to let him go home - because it's just amazing having yet another incredible friend so close by and being able to spend so much time with him... 
but at the same time - it took some guts to come here!!
Think of it this way - you meet someone online in a different country in order to teach each other your language (or in Mat's case to practice a language he's already studying and fluent in) - you get on and become friends - then get invited to the country, and agree to go on your own to meet said person and their friends...
Daunting much?
I'd not be brave enough to - I'm a chicken though to be fair hahaha


It's a bit like a dream to be fair.
I'm probably going to be a bit like "Did he really come?" next week when he's gone.
At the same time, it feels so... right. Like he's always been here. Meant to be here. 
It's so comfortable having him here. 
I don't want him to leave!!


It's so strange to think he's only been here a few days
Weirder still to think he's leaving like... tomorrow... ='(


There's so much we didn't get to do!!
It doesn't seem fair!!


I'm gonna miss him soooo much!


Tonight we have epic dancing at Kinky though - so... should be a right laugh!
We always have a laugh ^_^


I've been spending my evenings with Li and Mat lately. We just chill out and play on laptops, and laugh, and talk, then end up laid together tickling each other, sitting playing guitar, writing, reading, just being together. It's like a little bubble of heaven. 
I actually think of Mat as another best friend now. 
Is that even possible after such a short time knowing each other??


Li, as always, has been dragging me by the hand through some rough patches. 
It's less dragging, and more marching further ahead then demanding I come catch up. Like when little kids wont walk on, and you kinda stomp up the path then say "Come on!" and jab a finger to the floor by your side. "Now!" 
Bless him. He must be so sick of these stupid lows of mine.
I know I am.


He's not feeling too great himself lately.
By 'feeling' I mean the peripheral feeling that I get about him. I dunno how else to explain it. It's not how someone looks, or smells, or sounds - but it's similar. 
I think it's stress. Essays, work loads, interviews, waiting; then social issues that he gets relied on for; equipment going missing... he takes so much on and deals so well with it all. But lately there's this feeling about him - like he's tired of it all being twice as hard as it should be. 
Maybe that's just my feelings and I'm just thinking that they're his. 
I know that life is feeling ridiculously difficult lately. 
I mean, with deadlines fast approaching, and having to decide what to do next year, and getting ready to leave everyone... it's not the best time of year.


I know my other friends are feeling the strain too.
Kaydie is going slowly insane with the financial pressures that have creeped up this year.
Helen can't work out what to do with her life.
Russell is fighting a battle that he wont let any of us see.


All of us just seem to be getting worn out.
I think we need a break. 


Maybe next weekend we should have a BIG party, or a get away - actually leave Leicester together for a while... 
It would do us all some good.


Nights out are nice - but you always go the same places and see the same things, and you always come back thinking "I should have stayed in and done more work. I shouldn't have spent so much money."


We need an all expenses paid trip to somewhere fun!


Oh well.


This week has been so great in itself. Personally.
It's been my reading week (time to catch up without the threat of falling further behind)
Mathieu's been here
Chocolate!!
And so on...


Coming out the other side of this dark tunnel has helped too.
Maybe now things will get better. Properly better this time.
Not just 'Okay-ish'.
Not just 'It'll do'.
Not just 'For now'.


Better. Properly better. Like - life is GOOD - kind of better.


We'll all find our inspirations and get our work done.
We'll stop spending too much money - and the bursary will make it all ok.
Li will get into Swansea.
Helen will find a direction.
Kaydee will get on top of her bills.
Russell will slay his dragon.
And I'll finish something.




Don't look at me like that. It's gonna happen. All of it.




"With Hope. It should end in hope. [...]
 Hope is what guides me, it is what gets me through the days and especially the nights.
The hope that once you are gone from my sight it will not be for the last time. "


Let us end this with Hope, and try to live our lives with it always.




Blessed Be xx

make love, not war

"Make Love"


Who ever came up with that phrase should eat those words.
Strike that, anyone who ever miss-used those words should be made to shove them up their arse.


Fucking is a much more accurate description of a majority of the sex that occurs these days.
Maybe once it was an expression of love... though I've had my doubts since obese young.
Sex isn't even about reproduction. It's about fulfilling a selfish, primal desire for satisfaction.


So why do we link it to love?


They say that it's the closest you can be to someone; being literally inside them, or having them inside you.
But that's only physical, and love is metaphysical...


So perhaps if we look at the reverse...


We are supposed to love the people that we have intercourse with so that we feel the urge to protect the bearer of our child... though how that explains women loving the men...?
I suppose love is built up on trust, and you have to trust someone before they touch or invade your most sensitive, intimate parts; literally letting them inside you...


So, if the roots of sex are truly in Love, where has that gone?
When did sex become a commodity?
And why?


Did the free market really open our ideals so far? Or did we already view the body as product - ready to be packaged and sold off to the highest bidder.




You may be thinking 'Lauren, what the hell are you going on about? Where is all this coming from?'
So, let me deviate a little and explain where this thought process begins.




Today (well, I suppose since it's early Wednesday morning I should say last night) we watched Requiem for a Dream.
It's odd, interesting, kinda sick... and feeds brilliantly into Naked Lunch - the text I'm currently studying for Film and Literature. It's about drugs, drug addiction, and the things people do for drugs. 


There are four main story lines in the film. That of an abused girl turned drugie, her boyfriend and his best friend who are users and wannabe-dealers (one of them a heavy user, the other more controlled), and the mother of said boyfriend - who gets hooked on 'dieting pills'. Shan't give too much away in case you want to see the film and haven't as of yet (also, if you have seen the film, you don't need a break down of it anyway).


Basically, lots of bad stuff happens to the four of them (individually and together) and part of the film really got to me on a personal level.


Now, if you've read many of my older, rambling posts you'll know that I've been through some bad stuff when it comes to men, relationships, etcetera etcetera...
So, when this girl gets talked into sleeping with people for money/drugs (again, by the connotations and context) I instantly got that gut - OMG - feeling. 


That feeling of totally understanding. Of feeling the indignity, the disgust, and the necessity of it all.


"Can you turn the lights off?" She asks
"You never wanted them off before." The naked man behind her replies, sprawled out on the bed, waiting for her to disrobe. She can't turn and look at him. Her eyes stay focused firmly some point far away, trying not to feel. Trying so hard not to think.
"I know, but... please?" 
What should it matter to him anyway? It's not as if he wants to look. All he wants is to take. To use her body and satisfy his own lust. He doesn't need to see. He knows where everything is. Hasn't he seen enough?
"Okay" He acquiesces, dimming the lights as she begins to remove her top. She still can't look.


Because now she knows what love is. Now she's felt love. 
How do you go back on that?
How do you go back on feeling whole, and worth something?


Needs must.


I guess that's the thing. 
When her boyfriend calls the last time, and begs her to wait for him. To not go and be used just so she can get another fix. To not be nothing... it's the innocence in her voice when she asks
"Can you come today?"


Which need is greater? That of love, or that of drugs?
You never find out.
Not in the film at least.


There's these looks she has during the film, and they remind me of feelings - of times - of places. Times and places I'd rather had never happened, have never been... 


I'm laid in bed next to him, feeling utterly void. It's like being dead inside. 
I've given up. I may as well just give up. I may as well just give him what he wants. 
I've given him my body, my soul has disappeared, my heart is broken in a million pieces... I may as well just give him the rights to this and have done. 
The thought of being his girlfriend again makes some echo of me want to cry.
I text my best friend, telling him I'm giving up, giving in, letting him have me back again.
It's not as if I can feel anyway - it's not as if it matters.
He's asleep, or at least resting. 
I can't lay next to him for some reason right now. I get up and sleep walk to the kitchen where I take the call from my friend, who berates some feeling back into me.
I cry in the kitchen for so long I get scared he'll come find me.
I want to hide... but he's in my bed... in my room... in my house. 
If I could leave him here, I would... but I don't want to come back to him. 
Don't want to go back to being nothing after feeling what love really is.




It's not as if all of my experiences have been bad though.
There's plenty I've convinced myself were wonderful.


"We didn't have sex, Li; we made Love..." - me trying to convince either Li (or myself) that I'm in love with Will


"But it feels so right. It doesn't even hurt..." - me trying to convince one of us that DJ could be the man I loved


"But he loves me..." - possibly my worst excuse for 'loving' someone




I look around, and all I see is this desperate need for satisfaction.
One night stands.
Fuck-buddies.
Friends with benefits.
Open relationships.
Hell, even some relationships are just an excuse for satisfying needs!


So here I am, loosing faith in the world while we sell our selves to the highest bidder (well, not even the highest sometimes). 


That's why I enjoy spending my time with Libor and Mathieu.
Because, with them, there's none of that.
There's no sub clause, no cost, no conditions... 
They never treat me like a commodity, or an unnecessary part.
They're just cuddly, and nice, and wonderful.


Why isn't everyone like that?

Why aren't all boys so considerate? So kind? So HUMAN??


Why aren't girls either??


It's as if the world has turned into this mutant race, where all they do is take from each other. All they do is use other people to satisfy some want, some need, something more than they have. They only consider other people when it's of benefit to themselves.
Hell, I'm part of the mutant race in my own way. A majority of people I only consider when it suits me. That's so bad. I shouldn't be like that.
The thing is, you get treated like that for so long that you start doing it back. 


There are some people in my life that are constantly wanting something from me. The only thing is, they don't want me at all - they barely care. All they want is the thing... even if that thing is time. Even if it's only an ear. 
They ask you how you are, then barely wait for the answer before launching into their request.


I, for one, am probably very rude, in that I don't ask how people are very often (unless I've just been asked, then I feel it's obligatory). I often start a conversation with "Hey, do you mind if..." or some other question. Basically - what ever it is that I want to talk to them about.
I suppose the benefit of that is that when I ask how someone is, I really want to know the answer. Maybe it's more honest in that way? I don't know. Sometimes I feel bad about it, but then I think - if anyone had a major issue with it, they'd tell me, or at least stop being my friend. 


I tend to loose friends more out of loosing touch than by offending them though.
I have a slight tendency to 'drop off the map' as I call it.
Basically, I just stop doing things that require me socialising with anyone but my very closest of friends (i.e. Libor and my flat mates)
That's also pretty bad.


There's so much that I need to stop doing.
Like rambling about myself in blogs.
Or going on about stupid things in public places (yes, this is a public place)


The main one I need to do - the one that will basically stop the others from happening - is that I need to stop feeling like I'll never be good enough. 
Anyone who has ever felt that way will understand what I mean.
It's dibilitating. 
And it hurts. A lot. 


But enough about me, and my silly emotional rubbish. Enough with the ranting and raving and personal histories...


Hopefully you know how amazing you are.
Try never to forget that you really are great.




Blessed Be xx

proving love isn't just blind, it's bloody stupid

I sit quietly next to him, my fingers trailing lazily along the line of his neck.
The heat of his body next to me is like a fire, creeping slowly over my skin, permeating into the lower levels of my body, relaxing each muscle in turn. First my arm, then my leg start to unloosen and unfold beside him. My shoulder and stomach follow, neck and back relaxing into the cushions behind us; finaly the other side of my body joins in and only my head us left awake.
Something in me reminds my brain to stay in this moment, not float away. A dream threatens at the edge of my existence, enticing me in with its soft, bright colours and the promise of wonder.
Odd how when I'm alone sleep is some ominous threat of pain, conflict and intimidation, but when I'm snuggled up like this it seems like a cloud descending to take me away to heaven.

My head begins to droop as his hand strokes down my arm; my cheek sliding down to lay on his shoulder, eyes closing without permission.

Away from the world we float together in a sea of happiness so pure there aren't words to describe it.
Bliss has nothing on this moment.

As we lay together, simply existing with one another, the pains of my life melt away. Our lips meet, and the universe explodes. No one, no thing, no place or time can compare to this - to you.
Finally, finally I understand what this thing called love can really be, mean, feel like. Everything else was just a shadow.

This is what it really means to be truly happy. You... you are all that is, was, could be...

I am nothing, nothing but the echo of your smile.
My voice is a shadow of you lips.
My eyes a blink of your gaze.
My life a beat of your heart.
My world is you.

Waking in your arms should cement the deeam, but instead the illusion is shattered.
My dreams lay broken at your feet, and I claw back at the tears so you can't tell.

I can't stand loving you this much.
It breaks my heart every day, and even more every night.

I guess that proves love isn't just blind it's god damn stupid.

Love sucks.

Oh well.


Blessed be xx

Every day, something new

Well, this is new... blogging on my phone...
This could mean that I post more and more frequently! I'm not sure whether to apologise for that or not.

Lately I've not been feeling too great... but I'm sure most of you can relate to why.
There's this boy (cue groan over cliche issue) and I can't stop thinking about him.
I miss him every minute of the day.
When I talk to him my heart races... but in this gentle, contented way.
When he's around I go all red and stuff...

Sounds great right?
Being all in love and stuff?

I guess sometimes it is...

... but sometimes it's pure torture.

I just want to lay in his arms and feel that comforting safety, hear his steady heart beat, be encircled by his strong arms...
I want to hold his hand, and caress his skin, to feel his lips pressed against mine as if sealing something deep inside ourselves...

But I can't... and it's slowly tearing me apart...

love...

It's such a small word for such a big feeling.

I love you...

eight letters. three words. one life


Oh well. On we must go.


Blessed be xx

Better to ask forgiveness than permission...

I realise the irony as I lay here, listening to you apologise. The same phrases as before come out of your mouth.
"I didn't mean to"... "it wont happen again"..."I love you"


You're almost in tears. Normally that's my cue to forgive you. To hold you and comfort you...
but the irony is still tugging too hard today. 
I wish I could get angry at you for it, but I can't. I've no energy left to even point out the fact that every time you do it you say it wont happen again, let alone shout, or cry, or tell you to go.


I sigh and roll over. 
Your hand pulls on my shoulder. You need me to forgive you. 
It hurts you so much inside, does it? It hurts you ... wow, just - wow. 
Your selfishness is apparently contagious, because I can't be selfless now. I can't cuddle you and say "It's okay"... 
I know they say that it's better to ask for forgiveness than to ask permission... but by giving you forgiveness I seem to just be giving you permission to do it again. 
You're like a child. 


A child who does wrong and is forgiven never learns.


Some how you remind me of those fathers who abuse their children and then cry and beg their forgiveness... 
it's pitiful.


A grown man shouldn't cry. Not like this. Not for no good reason.


Women cry for no reason. Even that's deplorable in my opinion. 
But for a man to cry over not being forgiven..?
I could understand if it was life changing. Not being forgiven for something big, that they really didn't mean to do - a true accident... that's understandable.
But for you to abuse me, then cry about me not saying it's alright...?


I can see the pain welling up in you, and all I can think is that you deserve it.
Why should you be allowed to live with yourself if I can't live with myself because of you?
Why should you have more right than me to feel whole, and well, and human?


You don't seem to realise how much of me you have ripped away by your constant blows - emotional, physical and mental. You don't seem to care that while you beg my forgiveness I'm still red and bruising from what you've just done.
I used to cry when you did these things to me.
Now I just turn off and hide somewhere deep inside myself. 
That way it doesn't hurt so much.
You seem to think that because I'm not crying I'm okay. 


I'm not.


I'll never be okay.


Not now.


Thank you... you complete ass hole... for destroying me...


The thoughts of pain and disgust swirl around me, but you're still right behind me as I lay turned away from you. Still persistent. Still crying my name, begging now..


"It's okay." I finally say. The tears start to leak from my own eyes now. 
Damn it.


Your arm comes around me and you bury your face in my back in relief. 
You either don't notice, or ignore, the stiffness in me. 
It's exhausting just laying here with you.
It feels like dying... like suffocating...






I guess the hardest part about my 'depression' is explaining it. 
Depression doesn't actually have a real cause. It just pops up. My friend doesn't think it's an excuse for me feeling shit - and to be fair, it isn't... it's just the word to describe the feeling. 
"Depression is not an excuse!" he'll say to me when he's frustrated.
and I agree with him... just like I used to forgive him... because it's what I do.
I put me aside and agree to what ever other people want. 


Okay, so I do agree that it's not an excuse... it's just that I don't think I use it as one. He seems to think I do. 
The thing is, he got over his depression... I just manage to keep my bearable. 
I don't know how to get over it. 


It's not like a mountain you have to climb over. It's not something you can set a goal and slowly work your way towards. It's not something you can map the progression of. 
It's a feeling, and a well of memories. I turn my back on my past, and it just bites me in the bum. It drags me back towards it, clawing me under...


I was feeling rather low the other day, and my flatmate copied out the chorus of P!nk's new song "Fuckin' Perfect" in a note to me.
I was fine till I read that. 
Then I broke down into a flood of tears that wouldn't stop. At all.
The thing is, I tell Li all the time that he's perfect... and I really see him that way. I know I shouldn't... but I do. For someone else to say those words to me - even if it was just a quoted song - hit me over the head like a sledgehammer. 
"Pretty, pretty please, if you ever, ever feel like you're nothing, you're fuckin' perfect to me."
My brain screamed back at those words - you're wrong! I AM nothing. 


I spend so much time trying to convince myself that I'm not the best thing in the universe sometimes... yet my gut reaction is always that I'm worthless. Why is that?
How can I think that I'm so great, but if someone says that I'm good I get pushed off my feet and can't understand what they're saying? How come I can't accept that other people might have a good opinion of me?


I got so used to fighting the world, and proving to myself that I had worth without them... it's as if my self worth is supported by their dislike of me. I can somehow stand against people, prove that I'm amazing and good, that I'm worth more than a million of them... but only if they don't see it. The second someone see's me as anything other than useless, rubbish, annoying, disgusting... the moment they recognise something more in me... more than the kids when I was growing up saw... more than a girl to be used under the pretence of love... more than a human punching bag... more than just an annoying hanger on... more than just that weirdo who plays piano... more than an outcast... the second they see me as valuable I fall flat on my face, and can't find my own self worth anywhere.


It's like when Libor said that he looked up to me. 
That still just does not compute. And not just because he's taller than me.
The words knocked the breath out of me when I first read them. 


I don't know how to be accepted. I don't understand what it means to be loved by anyone other than my family. It just doesn't compute. I can't get my head around what people can actually see in me. 


I always say I don't care what people think of me. 
In a way, it isn't true. It's more than no one used to think anything of me - and if they did it wasn't in a good way... so I learnt to not think of them either. 
I see someone look at me and I turn away with an air of "fuck you" because I assume they're looking at me critically, thinking of something horrible to say. 
Call me paranoid, but experience has taught me that in everyone else's opinion I'm a disgusting excuse for a human being, and should be made aware of my own physical unattractiveness as often as possible.


That sounds so melodramatic reading it back... but I'm pretty sure those are words a majority of people have paraphrased through out my life. 
Maybe I just grew up around really horrible people...? 
I don't know. 
But the only time people were nice to me (before University) was if they were setting me up to be the butt of a joke.
It makes you suspicious. 
Hell, if people come on to me on nights out I assume it's as a joke among friends. 
Yeah... you're probably right about the paranoia thing.


Thing is, I really value my friends opinions.
So, this is me, sitting here, slowly trying to readjust my ideas of who I am.
Trying to work out how to keep up the fight against a world that has stopped fighting me.
Trying to make myself believe all the stuff I've always told everyone else.
And trying to work out why people have hurt me so much if I'm what my friends say I am.


How do you convince yourself that you're worth so much when people have always treated you as worthless and usable?


Hmm... I'm sure there's a way.


Enough emo drivel. Time to crack on with the essay of poetical doom.




Blessed Be xxx

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

And the word was...

My fingers push on the metal, flicking out the blade in a practised motion. A thumb pushes against the catch and I slide the blade back away. 

Push. This time slower, smoother, letting it slide almost sensuously out. The clean -snick- sound as the catch clicks into place beneath it. The slight glisten as the light catches the edge, making it look lighter, friendlier... shiney, new... the sparkley object of any magpie's desires. My eyes trace the smooth edge from point to it rough, hacking hilt.
I turn it slightly where I lay, looking at the tip. Blunt. Not so blunt that it wont pierce things, but too blunt to be effective. The metal edge by the tip is crinkled from too much use. It really needs sharpening.
My thumb runs along the side of it, caressing the damaged edge all the way to the safety catch.

This time I wrap my hand around the closed knife. My knuckles show white and I close my eyes. 
The belt clip digs into my palm as I hold on too tightly, and there it is again. The urge to open it. The urge to slice through things. The urge...


But no. 


I shakily reach across to my bedside table and put the knife down. The resounding 'No' in my mind is feeble and quiet, but it's enough to make me let go and roll back over. 


I've been in bed now 16hours. Maybe less. The only thing keeping me going is the knowledge that I have to. 
Temptation sits not two feet away from me, but I pull on some deep reserve and hold still till the feelings pass.

That reserve seems depleted lately. Maybe I've been using it too much.
See, I hate them knowing. I hate the pity, the concern... it cuts deeper than any knife. It makes me burn with shame. Not just that, I see the pain it causes some of them, and the impatience it elicits in others... neither of which can I stand. 
So here I lay. Waiting to be able to face another day. 


It's harder when there's nothing to go do. Nowhere I've promised to be. 
Nothing to do with people.
I have plenty to do. More than enough to fill a life time if I'm honest. But I can't make myself want it. Can't make myself want to get up and do anything. Not unless it's for someone else. 


It's like this every time. 
Falling back into the pattern of living for others.
Unable to drag my sorry ass out of bed for anything less than a friend.


It makes me so angry.


You'd think that would help!
Being angry should wipe away the emptiness.
But it doesn't. It makes it worse.
Because I'm now angry at myself, berating myself... it's like beating an already cowering dog... it just makes it worse. It's rather pathetic really.


I turn onto my back and stare up at the ceiling.
Blank, staccato white stares back at me. The light coming through my thin curtains is that of the day now, rather than the street light. The clock on my wall reads 5pm... it's wrong. I glance at my phone, limp and helpless on the pillow next to me, and can't be bothered to unlock it to register the actual time. I've just realised I don't actually care. 


Sighing, my hand curls around a cuddly toy. 
There's three of them in my bed. Some times there's more, but these are the three that I make sure are there with me - not fallen down the back of my head board or left downstairs. Stitch, BonBon and Sugarcube.
Normally I would only cuddle one of them to fall asleep with. Lately I've needed all three of them all night. I've even taken to taking them down with me to cuddle on the sofa in the kitchen. 


The soft fuzz of a donkey kisses my hand, and I draw Sugarcube closer.
I don't have the energy or enthusiasm to hold him tight, but having him pushed gently against my chest helps a little.
Another reminder of the closest person in my life. Li bought me Sugarcube - the newest addition to the family - for my birthday this year. He's small enough to be hidden in two large hands, and I love him. 
My thumb strokes down his back, the urge to read the tag in his ear again wells up a little, but I already know it by heart.
Every time I'd read it aloud to someone they said it was just like Li.
It had been my first thought on reading it too.


"Sugarcube 
...the helpful little donkey... 
...He'll carry you through life when you need him"


I want to walk though. I want to stand on my own two feet and not need anyone or anything... 
I bite my lip, trying not to think the word that loves echoing round my head lately.
"Weak."
It's like a mantra. 


Some little person seems to be squatted in the back of my mind whispering
"You're weak. You're useless. Pathetic. Too weak to get out of bed. Too weak to fight back. Too weak to win. Not good enough..."
Sometimes that voice is so loud it drown out logic and every other thought there is. I really have to confiscate the stupid things megaphone.


The really annoying part is that the warrior princess that used to stand tall in my mind and be my strength seems to be lazed around somewhere, eating chocolate, saying "ah, what's the point? Just give in already. Take the easy route for once. I'm tired of doing everything for you."
(Which, I have to remind myself, is completely paradoxical... how can part of me do everything for myself and this be a problem?)
So I lay and think about nothing.


My to do list keeps running through itself quietly. The "URGENT!!" label next to 'Essay' flickers up and makes me feel even worse. But it's being quiet for now, and I lay in peaceful unease for a little longer. 


Finally I swing myself out of bed though. Toilet. Clothes. Food. Internet.
The prospect of a shower is hindered by the fact that it may cause the kitchen ceiling to collapse... we'll leave that till tomorrow.


It's almost like moving through a dream at times though. 
Time seems to run on without me. 
One second it's 2pm and I'm checking some things in the kitchen.
Next it's 5pm and it's dark in the kitchen. 
I'd think that I'd blacked out, if I couldn't retrace all of my actions. I can, and I can sort of see how they've added up to 3 hours of wasted time... but the perception is still confusing in a way.


In my dazed actions there's been a constant weight. An embarrassment that I keep trying to bury under explanations, justifications, jokes... 
It all revolves around the explicit and my behaviour.
Not only have I been psychopathic lately, smashing things and clawing skin; I've also been ridiculously sexual. To the point of appearing to be either a slut or an underpaid prostitute. 
My mind justifies it as 
a) missing Will 
b) PMT 
c) hiding from my real feelings (like, perhaps, actual love)
d) a way to escape feeling sad
e) a display of confidence and fun...


None of it matters though. None of it justifies acting like a complete ass. 
I think the mask slipped a little on Thursday though. Managed to fix it firmly back in place and only a few people saw the cracks underneath, but still - the worst part is that I hadn't realised how much of a mask it was until that point. 

Welcome to breaking point.


So, the weekend arrives and here I am. Dazedly wandering around a practically empty house after spending a majority of the day in bed. 
A pile of work waiting for me to wake up out of my stupid day-dream/nightmare (daymare?).


I sit down at my desk, poised at the laptop... but I don't even open my work. I open facebook and msn.
Why?
Lonely maybe. I'm not sure.
There are a few things to be flicked through on facebook, and a few people to ignore on msn... why is it I always log on there and never find the person online that I want to talk to?
Fate, I decide, and close a bunch of conversations that aren't going to go anywhere today. Boys, mostly, who have a way of drifting in and out of my life; taking what they can while they're around, and being shoved as far away as possible when I can't take it any more. 


The latest in a long line of hopefuls has started to loose hope. He doesn't even push for more conversation when I brush him off.
I'll feel bad about that later.
Oh well.


I get to talk to my best friend for a while at least. 
In a way it feels good to chat to him. In another I feel like a fool. Like I've been letting him down - like I still am. 
Double edged sword I guess. Admiring and loving someone... it makes you want to be the best you can be for them... and when you fail, it's both a comfort that they still love you, and a stab of shame that you've disappointed them again.
Promising to do the work, to get better, to fix everything - I let him go to bed, knowing that all the best intentions in the world are not going to make tonight any easier. 


I fight the urge to log off and get in bed. My safe haven.
It's looking at me with a rumpled 'come back..?' stare. Unblinking (since my bed has no eyelids) and unshaken. Just there, pleading silently to be snuggled. Wanting to hold me again. 
My bed has become the ultimate metaphor for the man I never have. 
Patient. Loving. Warm. Comfy. Always there...


One day I'll realise that a man like that would drive me totally insane. 
That I would want to kick him for not being impatient with me. That his unwavering love would make me want to push it as far as it could. That he would be too warm, that I like the cold. That him being there for me would start to feel like being crowded and I'd just want him to go away...
But no matter how hard I tell myself those things, my heart still has this little bit of hope hiding in there. That bit of hope that says "With him, though, it'll be different. If you love him, and he loves you, enough... everything will always be perfect. You'll make it perfect."


My heart is a romantic really... 
Probably why it gets hurt so often. 


I found these past few weeks that I can love someone so quickly it hurts. That I give out my heart left right and centre. It's like I don't know how to hold back.
But I can't hate. 
I try; and people make me so angry I would gladly hurt them like mad... 
But I don't hate them. 
There's still this feeling of "once I've beaten you to a bloody pulp... I nurse you back to health and care for you."


I can't full on hate.
It just... it doesn't compute. 
It's like my switch doesn't work. It's stuck on "love".
If I had those tattoos on my knuckles that say LOVE and HATE... mine would both say Love...
Either that or LOVE and LIKE...


Some people are stuck on the Hate setting. 
That makes me feel so sad in a weird way.
It's like... hate just seems to hurt people so much.
Okay, granted - Love hurts too. But in that... that worthwhile way.
Like childbirth. It hurts like hell, but it's worth it to hold that sweet little creature at the end. 
Love hurts like hell, but it's worth it - even if it's only to have a connection with someone; even if it's only for a few moments. 
Because those moments lift you up. They make the world shine in different colours. They make the beating of your heart mean something.


I've been so badly hurt over the years through loving people.
So bad that I might never get over it.
But I wouldn't take it back.
I wouldn't give up loving any of the people I have, or do... 
Because even through the pain, and even through the life changing events, and the abuse, and the rejection... through all of the shit that people and life have thrown at me... there's this goodness shining behind it.
Like a silhouette... the shapes that have been drawn by my past are disturbing at times, and horrible - but the colour of the sunset behind them is brilliant, beautiful, and softens the blow.


My own words from nights before echo back at me to prove me wrong though.
"How can someone say they love you, then you hurt you so much?"


Li had my head cradled against his shoulder, one hand in my hair, the other clinging to my shoulders as I cried. My hands grabbing onto him, holding him so tight my fingers were getting cramp - but unable to let go or loosen my grip.
I felt his breathing become tight and slightly jumpy with emotion

"I don't know... I don't know" He whispered into my hair, rocking me slightly. There were tears in his words, though I couldn't see his face to see if they were in his eyes as well. 
I wondered if he were thinking about Luke, or whether he had been pulled into his own past. 
The thought of him being hurt brought on a new wave of tears. It was only because I knew he wouldn't want me to cry over him, or the past, that I managed to clamp down on them. Swallowing them down, down, down with the pain.


Okay, so maybe it's not all been worth it.


Maybe I'd like to be able to close myself off and not give myself away any more.


Maybe I'd like to be strong and happy.


But lets be realistic here.


I finally click on the little icon reading "Assignment" and load up my work. 
Time to start using that dwindling IQ of mine for something other than obscure speculation. 
I cringe at the memory of my IQ test result this morning. 119... damn, when did I get so stupid?
Time to start thinking again me thinks! (see what I did there? yeah, that's why I need my brain back)


Wish me luck!


May your days be filled with wonder and happiness, 
and if your fortunes take a turn for the worst, may you have the strength and courage to deal with them.




Blessed Be xx