05/20/14

People are coming in my room (giant, black, wispy bodies with dangerous limbs) and I can't open my left eye and I wait I wait I wait I can hear them filling in the hallway and pressing up against my door and there are too many bodies shoved and crushed against my door and I am trying to keep my paralyzed eyes open so I have enough time to scream but they burst through and I know that I will not be able to scream for Benjamin loud enough before they slit my throat.

Awaken.

04/15/14

We are at Hannah's wedding. I am in my cobalt dress, but the back plunges all the way down to my tailbone. I am sitting at a table laughing and trying not to sound to hollow to these people I am struggling to connect with. Natalie comes over and sits in my lap, curling into me. I breathe her for a while to feel less sad, but soon she is gone to congratulate her sister bride. I turn back to the table of people I could have been family with and then feel a light hand on my shoulder. I turn to look up at you, who are smiling down gently at me. "Would you want to dance with me?" I kick off my heels so we are the same height again, stand up, and you lead me on your arm to the dance floor. We are far apart at first, and your hand's light touch as it slides from my waist to my hip sends flames shooting across my skin. A text sends from my phone to Erik: "I am legitimately happy for the first time in a very, very long time." The photographer comes near and you pull me closer; I feel the body heat from you radiate over my skin and I feel warm in a way I have not been in so very long. My arms dangle around your neck and my chin is on your shoulder. I feel your beard hairs tickle my cheek and I grin uncontrollably. You feel my smile and turn your head slightly to kiss my dimple. The song changes, and we slide apart and begin dancing wildly. I missed how you looked in your dress shoes. As we dance I can see us from a distance, and we have certainly changed. My face is gaunter now, riddled with new, fine lines from sadness and pain, and even though my eyes sparkle they are surrounded by those giant sleepless bags that are growing beneath them. Your shoulders look filled out again, but your belt is pulled tighter and your stomach is more concave than usual (have you been eating? I will feed you!). The song ends and I stop to catch my breath, hands on my hips and laughing. I am so happy, even as I feel the moment ending and know that you will leave again. You graze my forearm with your fingers and familiar needles shoot from my nerves and up my spinal cord, releasing a flood of serotonin. "Do you want to go back to my place?" you ask and my throat instantly closes up. I narrow my eyes, but your face is open as it ever has been. "This isn't...sexual or anything, right?" I ask, and you nod. I am beginning to say "then, yes" but your hand slides around my waist and pulls me close and the word stops in my throat as I try not to cry.

I am wearing your pajama pants and your light blue Eisley shirt. We are in your new apartment. I crawl slowly onto the bed and stretch out, sore from the dancing. I can feel you staring at my legs, and you say "I forgot how long they were" when you see me watching your gaze. You grin and your crows feet appear, causing my heart to catch in my throat--I loved those most of all. You pat the bed and I slide into the space between your chest and your arm. I press my cheeks into your bony, protruding sternum, and soon feel it become soaked with my tears. I try to wipe them away, but my fingers get lost in memories as soon as I touch your chest hair and now I am rubbing your chest singing "soft kitty, warm kitty, little ball of fuuuuur" and you softly laugh before pulling me closer whispering "hey...hey. Samantha, I am right here" and you are wiping away my tears. I unfold on you and feel our legs tangle as your arm is firm against my back, pushing me against you where I need to be. I fall to sleep, my body growing limp as my face slowly slides off your chest and my nose is buried on your armpit. Sleep. Sleep. Warm. Sleep.

I wake up and you are gone? Please, no. NO. I cover my mouth with my hand as my heart falls into that stillness that has surrounded me these past months. I still have that sense of peace God gave me that morning when he told me to keep preparing myself for you, but it is still surrounded by the empty screaming death that knows I will never end up with you. And how it screams. I swing my legs off of your bed, surrounded by the smell of detergent and I know that I will have to run a very long time if I am ever going to stop crying today. My feet hit your floor (but whose ship came washed up on whose shore? and from what ocean floor?) and my body collapses suddenly. At least I was not in the shower this time. At least I can force myself to stand back up (oh God, why must I lay in this grave of a body for so long?). I look back and your bed is dissolving from my tears. I am cold again. No. NO.

In the living room we run into each other. I smell that you were cooking a Ben Cole breakfast. You didn't leave? I can see you staring in sadness into the still screams that you see in my eyes as I feel that flicker of hope and longing that I have come to hate (it comes all the time, when I think about you, and I have to quench it because it is false, crazy, all a dream). You open your mouth, hesitant as I start swaying again, feeling another collapse coming on. "Samantha..." you say and I swallow a heavy heart knowing that no one else will ever say my name like that. You kneel down before me and take my hands. You look up at me. I gaze blankly down. That flicker of hope is going crazy and my soul is weeping as it tries to put it out (it never will die down). "Samantha..." you say, grabbing my left hand and stretching it out. My body catches fire instantly and my vision blurs and everything everything EVERYTHING is feeling all at once and the deadness and screaming has given way to something new and alive and the stones in my eyes are alive with praise and oh GOD I am on fire fire fire because as you say "...please come home" I see that you put a ring on me while I slept (you never sold it? YOU NEVER SOLD IT) and it is black and gold and glistening and perfect and I collapse (but not from my body locking up in sad, empty deaths--this is me falling open and everything good is spilling out and into me again and we are breathing each other OH MY GOD I CAN BREATHE and the air rushes into my lungs and you were right: I forgot how to breathe). I am in your arms bawling, bawling, bawling and your warm, strong arms that are enclosing me are the only things keeping me honest.

Flashbacks. All at once. Tracks and films overlayed. Every time that you told me that you were going to be the one I woke up to when I was sixty, every time that you told me you would always be there for me, every time that you grabbed me by the shoulders and yelled to me "I CHOSE YOU, SAMANTHA. I CHOOSE YOU EVERY DAY." I believe you. I believed you. I always believed you. I never believed a day of you choosing someone else. I always KNEW you would come back to me to finish living out those promises. I still chose you every day. I did. I did. I did. I do not know how else to say "I love you." Your skin has had my name whispered into every inch of it and you have tattooed yourself across every part of my soul. Every flashback that has haunted me is stacked upon itself and I see it blossom into fruition. Yes. This is how it is supposed to be. We choose each other.

"I-" I stammer. "I am not going to give up my friends or family. I don't believe that. But I have messed up, lover, I have. Be with me. I promise I will be with you. Always. All ways. Marry me. I am ready to be home." and we are crying into each other and laughing and made perfect in each others love and

Awaken.

[[My face is covered in tears and I bite my pillow trying not to scream out in pain and my body shivers and quakes and every organ of mine is wrenched in this familiar loneliness. Why. No. Why do I have dreams like that. Why. No. It is too real. It is everything that I want. Everything. Everything. I raise my head (that is now ready for marriage and I HATE IT WHY DID THAT COME SO LATE) and my vision is streaked with tears and I look at the clock and I still have hours until my alarm goes off and I am just choking and weeping and. and. I will never be home. Lover, where did you go?]]

04/14/14

We are in a sunbaked parking lot, dry heat steaming up from the cracks in the pavement as the bright bright concrete reflects the glaring sun into my eyes. I breathe deeply, wishing there was moisture in the air, before ducking into a large, metal gym. The heat is almost worse inside, the air staler, but the glare is gone at least. No windows. I hear a metal cage descend over the building (structural reinforcement?) but ignore it and push open a series of heavy, hot, metal doors. I finally find the roller derby game, and drag myself up onto the metal bleachers which are burning hot, despite being in the shade. I watch with heavy-lidded eyes. I could do this. Be a roller derby girl. I could. "THE DOORS ARE LOCKED." I hear a scream. The metal cage. I was so blind. I see my brother from across the gym--how did he get here? No. God no. Not Joseph. I run to doors and began delivering blows to the thinnest section of the thick, hot metal. It does not bend. There is no glare, because there are no windows. I lift my head, sweat rolling down my neck and stinging in the creases of my skin. The metal cage will crush us. Slowly crush the whole gym like a giant wad of paper. Will we all be forced into the center, alive, pressed together in a giant fleshy, writhing, sweating, screaming glob of humans before being crushed into each other to death? Or will some die on the outskirts, crushed in the folding bleachers? Between doors? Someone shouts "IT GIVES" and we all start moving towards some doors that have been blown out, letting in the scalding sun and dusty, heavy air. Some of the kids are in basketball uniforms and linger in the gym. "Ha, while everyone is out we will stay in and have a REAL game of basketball." My throat is dry. My eyes are wet with dried up tears. No liquid, just stinging salt. "Joseph...please," I choke out, in the most pleading voice I have ever heard. He looks up, wide-eyed and terrified and begins moving towards me as I start shaking in relief. We will live to see another day out in the sun that will burn off our skin. I take his hand. We walk through the door as I fight the urge to run away screaming. We are free.

Awaken.