(Sometimes we write to connect with others. Other times we
write to connect with ourselves, our pain. This is one of those circumstances. This
piece of writing is oblique and I know it. Even so, I can’t bring myself to be otherwise.
Yet.)
Will you weep with me? Share my
woe? Then perhaps it will be halved, divided. Might you accompany me to the
places sadness leads, examine the items it dredges up?
I
grieved the unknown then found I preferred it to the truth. Now randomly,
frequently, the surprise of loss claws at me, flings punches in the vicinity of my kidneys. I
wasn’t ready. It was too soon, much.
The
trail of my tears is charcoal gray with bits of plum and glimmers of silver shine,
or is it Fool’s Gold?
The feeling of responsibility whether warranted or not is insistent. If only . . . What
if . . . I shouldn’t have . . . It’s not even my burden
but I take it on gladly, not wanting it to break another beneath its crush. And then there is the silence, the
secret, that must be maintained. We cannot open wounds in others with this knowledge. Secrecy is a frigid lightless cave insisting you are alone even if you're not.
Should I thank this sorrow for the way it’s making my hand bleed upon the page? In
this moment, I wish I’d write never more. Will I be despised? For my incompleteness, my lack of clarity, my
refusal to truth tell? Translate my reticence as mystery, an opportunity. Fill
in the blanks with your heart. What is your secret grief, your regret? What is
the reason you hum, “Turn your eyes upon Jesus” and soon after, “And the things
of this world will grow strangely dim”? Or perhaps your song is, "Comfortably Numb."
I
want to gather the people who know, the very few—the two, no, three, who are aware.
I’ll arrange us in a row with me in the middle then I’ll unfold a handkerchief and smooth it out atop my thighs, outline a fuchsia lipstick heart in the center. Soon
after, I’ll drop my tears inside of it.
