Twisting and Turning

June 5th, 2005

Before I could open my eyes, as my eyelids fluttered in a struggle to free themselves from sleep, I felt myself breathe.  The air slowly filled my lungs with a soothing coolness that as I exhaled I felt a calm flood my body.  I inhaled deeply once again and my eyes opened wide as I stared at the ceiling above me.  I held the air in my lungs for as long as I could, then I slowly let it go through my nostrils.  I felt somewhat lightheaded.  But, a dreamy satisfied smile bent softly at the corners of my lips.  I enjoyed the sensation, the mere pleasure of just being able to take my next breath and feel it invigorate my body in such a heady way.  The thought struck me that I was 34 today, next November I would be 35.  I squished up my face and buried it into my pillow, pulling the blankets over my head at the same time.  I could hear my husband in the kitchen below making coffee, opening the cupboards seeking out the coffee mugs and the needed grounds.  As the faucet turned on I sunk back into semi-consciousness and a dream caught me unawares.

At once I was both 16 again, but still 34.  The elder in me watched mutely as the youth of myself charged forward into her future without a caution for life or limb.  The careless youth did not realize yet that there was more to lose than just a life, but a soul as well. The future for her burned fiercely bright and it’s wick intensely quick.  She would scrape her knees on the rough concrete of reality and dash her skull against the walls of dysfunction, whose bricks were so very thick.  My elder self with pity and heavy heart asked the youth of 16 “What plans do you have for the future?” She merely smiled a sly smirk and answered “That is if I make it that far, tomorrow is a lifetime away for me.”

With those words ringing throughout my thoughts I was roused from my dreams by the sound of the coffeemaker percolating.  I lay there very still nestled in the bedding perusing my thoughts.  I never would have believed so long ago that tomorrow would lead to the age of 34.  That I made it to 30 is a miracle.  I closed my eyes tightly and inhaled deeply through my nostrils feeling the air filling my lungs. I just breathed, because I could.  My fingers spread about the blankets and they grabbed it in bunches and pulled it closer about my body.  I lay wrapped in the duvet quietly giving thanks to that murderous youth I was who sought to kill every trace of my being, blot it from existence.  Why? You say. Well, because as cunning and skillful as she was her prowess was never honed fine enough.  She was never quite the assassin for the task.  And because of this intrinsic flaw a  daughter, a mother, a wife, a sister, and a survivor was spared.  The aroma of coffee was becoming increasingly stronger as I heard my husband’s footsteps heavy on the stairs.  A smile wriggled across my lips.  I giggled and hid deeper under the blankets.  This was my life now.  And I felt a strange peace to know deep down inside that I had outlived a terminal illness, in a way, at least up to this point, that was vindicating enough.  To come out the other side knowing that that 16 year old would only haunt me in my dreams, and hopefully never attempt to take my breath away again, or succeed.

April 27th, 2005

I sit here kneeling with my brow pressed hard up against the smooth surface of the bottom of my bathtub.  My arms are wrapped tightly against my chest and my hands are clenched around my upper arms.  I can feel my fingernails biting deeper into the skin they so viciously harbor.  The pain I feel as it throbs down the arteries of my arms only feeds my mood of lust for release, to appease the voracious hunger of the black abyss whose maw opens within me with an insatiable appetite for the torture of my flesh and soul.  My lips part, I suck in a breath, water mingles with air and it throws me into a fit of coughing.  The shower sprays my back with water that has long turned too cold to bring comfort, but too warm to satisfy my longings.  My hair, jet, like the stone, clings and claws at my cheeks, the trickles of water along my temple drag it into my eyes and nostrils.  Through the distortion of tendrils of hair and streams of water, I catch a lovely hue.  The pools of water on the bottom of the tub dilute it as it collects underneath my chin.  I glance at my naked thighs and see that they are painted a crimson red that drips over my knees.  I know the cold water will only help, not heed the flow.  The pain in my arms suddenly becomes a stinging, stabbing sensation.  I eat it up like I am starved.  Yes, I have carved myself up with the bits and parts of a disposable razor.  Not the first time, but hopefully the last.  Inside I can feel the rise of elation, its over.  In my life I have held a fickle friendship with death, at times a lonely lover who knows my every whim and weakness, at others a dreadful silence.  But now I only see him as a means to an end.  Nothing else prevails, not my son, not my husband, just the end of a life not so well lived.  But, I have always lived on the razor’s edge, my lips curve into a sneer at that thought.  Crimson, blood everywhere, it splashes on my face, my hands, I am not afraid, just fascinated.  I smile as my body rocks to and fro; my head kicks back in reaction to the sensations that course through my body.  Knocking, knocking, then pounding, and yelling, damn it, not now, it’s my husband.  He wasn’t meant to be a witness to my ecstasy, not back for hours was what I had understood.  The door slams open; it’ll leave a dent that will stay there for weeks after.  I don’t make a sound, but the curtain rips back anyway.  I feel strong hands grab me by the back of my arms dragging me kicking and screaming from the shower.  Blood sprays the ceiling as my hands flail; why I know this cuz I have to clean it off later.  Profanity spews from my mouth, everything within that dark place utters forth.  Towels smother me, I can hear his voice loudly barking orders at me, but it all seems disconnected, unreal.  Before I know it I’m in the car, clothes all a skew, and its racing at an illogical pace toward the city, and the place I know so well.

This is JUST an experience that has been noted in the diary section of my site.  It is NOTmeant to glorify suicide or self abusive behavior.  In a state of stability I am able to fully comprehend the true nature of suicide and the heartbreaking ramifications it has on the family of it’s victims.  I in NO way, shape or form condone the practice of taking one’s life.  I am sharing this experience in the hopes that it prevents another person from making the same mistake in judgement that I made.

Today is a day, an episode of time which envelopes me like a cocoon.  It makes me feel like I am both soothed and protected by its kindly embrace, but yet suffocated by its cloying nature.  I find myself propelled through it as if driven by an internal desire to hurry through every second as if it were my last. But as each is rushed and pressed to its breaking point I feel a melancholy as if I had wantonly wasted a moment that could have been a brilliant flash in my life, if only I had held onto it a bit longer.

Perhaps, the moment would have breathed a profound experience into my some what emotionally threadbare existence.  I might have shared a particularly touching exchange of sentiment between myself and another member of the human race.  Funny, how I seem to cling to the need to be aloof to the process of life itself, but yet so desperate to feel anything besides this pervasive numbing sensation that tarnishes my very self awareness and impinges on the sentient experiences of my life.

I crave the deep etch of emotion and the feel of life’s existence upon my soul that excites the stimulation of adrenaline in the chemical make-up of my central nervous system. When I interact with intimate and significant relationships in my small immediate world of social awareness I need meaningful interplay.  I want my dearest to know how deeply they are loved; how powerful the connection I share with them truly is.  Then there is what I desire deep inside.  I want no demand excitement.  My whole existence, both flesh and bone, screams out for the trip and slide of unseen fingers upon the senses of my self, teasing me, enticing me, the cruelty of a desire fulfilling itself with a force too potent to withstand.

In the same moment when my consciousness feels the throes of these intensities there is this numbing that exudes its control over my mind.  It holds sway over my thoughts, my desires, it sneers at the turbulent fluctuations of fervor that causes my soul to writhe this way and that.  It demands that I halt this asinine behavior, numbing the inner tides of my desires to a disdaining nothingness, a deadly calm.  I slip into a melancholic fog.  A cerebral landscape that is clothed in a blanket of paralyzing mists and a thought chilling pervasive numbing in the air that prevents me from all cognizant processes.  It is as if my mind has deemed my conscious awareness too needy to be so rapt by its emotional turmoil and must disconnect, distance itself from an onrushing tide of desire and sentiment.

There have been times I have pined for this very melancholic fog to find me so that I could silently slip deep within its reaches and become engulfed by an embrace of numbing cerebral mists.  When in the land of shifting shadows pain cannot successfully hunt you, or startle its prey (you) in an unknown corner of the mind, it cannot find you long enough to narrow in on its mark.  The mists slip before your heart; before the trauma that stalks you can let an arrow fly.  However, to live in this shadowy world of cloistered thoughts and thick blankets of numbness that buffer one’s emotions from one’s heart can also be a dangerous one.  A person can be so entranced in this escapist delusion his/her mind has created for him/her, that he/she may not know when or how to leave when the time is of a dire necessity.  You cannot exist in this world of wisps and blankets of foggy embraces for an extended time or you will lose your path to this world, and to those you love.

Dart and duck as you may, there is a time when the mists will evaporate before your eyes and you must face the demons that have stalked you, oh, so long.  I have had to turn and feel the piercing of the arrow head as it slides through the flesh of my soul.  And all the torment and woes have burst before my mind’s eye.  Crumpled and crippled I have had to work the dart out from my very heart of hearts.  I have felt it shred what integrity I had left as it ripped its way back out.  But, all wounds heal and also leave scars for us to remember from where we have come, and from what we have fled, and what we have conquered.  Eventually the numbness turns to a dogged, yet jaded determination, acceptance, and the mists pass away.  And we all survive to a degree.