falling asleep

night

It will be the raw beauty
I will recall

when fear comes for me
with his deep open and
soulless mouth
forever screaming
out his blackness

I am so small and
I am afraid

afraid of the seductive edges
of his mouth
his embracing kiss
his captivating darkness

tonight
his chill infuses me - as
I compose my goodbye
gripping my own soul
with ruined hands

it's his night now,
sprinkled with the same stars
illuminated by the same moon

I knew before

when I trusted
in raw beauty

I cannot hear
my own words
to write this
I have only his cold embrace

still, tonight I will
write these aching lines
crawl through them
rubbing jagged truth under
my cold skin
within my eyes
into my still heart

this letting go is so long
and this living
so short



This poem started off as one thing, then changed itself into another.
It was about a person, who was a crutch, a turning point (an important one), for my life, but as I worked on it, it became a truth about me. It is the last thing I have written , and lately, I don't have the desire to 'pick up my pen' again.

I've been on another journey of sorts, one of self healing and discovery and it seems to be taking much of my time. For the last four days I've had to fight to keep myself from sleeping all day. All this emotional work apparently can make you physically exhausted as well. Doesn't seem fair, I'm eating alot sorts of "good-for-me" things, and have cut out all the "bad-for-me" things - and I feel like I've been hit by I truck.


I used to paint, but haven't been able to for a year now - this is (most of) the last (completed) illustration I did for a children's book. Then I just stopped painting. The reasons were complicated and very simple. The author and I are gearing up again, but all the pressure is on me, and then leads straight to my fears - one being that I will be seen for the imposter I am.




I recently set some "very-healthy-and-realistic-limits" on a very important relationship to me (my new skill, limit-setting) and now feel like I've lost a best friend, a lover (that I never had - but thought I did, my own silly fantasy). I suppose I'm grieving, I know I'm hiding and trying to come to terms with it, but this self knowledge does not seem too helpful today.


There's a quote that goes well with this whole "Leap of Faith" that I'm taking by leaving my old ways and growing into new ones, the author is unknown, but it's from a Unitarian Universalist Sermon I once heard

"When we come to the edge of all the light we have
And we step into the darkness, the unknown
We will find something solid we can stand upon
Or I believe that we will surely learn to fly."

I'm on the edge,
but I think I may be falling.

So, perhaps I have made sleep my drug of choice - I don't drink, eat meat, dairy, wheat, corn or refined sugar - not many indulgences left... (I do however eat small amounts of dark chocolate). When I started this journey a friend said I would feel "better" - "better pain", "better loss", "better everything" - well I can vouch for that now.



"So, so you think you can tell Heaven from Hell,
blue skies from pain.
Can you tell a green field from a cold steel rail? A smile from a veil?
Do you think you can tell?

And did they get you trade your heroes for ghosts?
Hot ashes for trees? Hot air for a cool breeze?
Cold comfort for change? And did you exchange
a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage?

How I wish, how I wish you were here.
We're just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl,
year after year,
running over the same old ground. What have we found?
The same old fears,
wish you were here. "
~Pink Floyd, Wish You Were Here


Anyhow, time for my nap....