Family visits

My mom, her husband, and my brother are visiting. They spent all the day in mountain traffic because of the snow. I got to catch up with them briefly before setting up the living room for them to sleep in. Them on the hidden bed and my brother using the couch pillows as a makeshift mattress.
Part of the conversation sticks around after. I brought up some of our former Georgia South neighbors from a long time ago, Diana and Ron. Diana taught me to sew, and very often I’d play Backgammon with her or her husband, for a time I joined them on church. Diana once gave me a book in two parts, one story about a young Christian girl who is thrown to the Roman lions and the young slave owners son who falls in love with her. The other a young girl possessed by a demon to ascend from a life of poverty through prostitution. Heavy reading material for a nine or ten year old.
Mom tells me a memory I don’t remember and little me tells her the church says she’s going to go to hell for not going to church. She says that’s the last time they watched me, or that I went to that church.
They’re likely not around anymore but sometimes I just wonder about them.
Tomorrow it’s going to specific stores my mom wants to see. Followed by a luncheon at the Melting Pot and holiday gifts after my husband returns home.
I am excited for that cheesy goodness.

I wonder…

If I’m legally allowed to text or call you ? I still have your number but avoid deleting it for some reason. Hearing your voice or getting a text from you would make my year that’s for sure… crazy how it’s been years since we actually had any real, direct communication… time flies.

Sometimes I think about contacting you but then I remember that saying “don’t go back to the flame that burned you”… my gut tells me to stay away from you and I always trust my instincts.

The truth is you scare me… I know you have a gun and you seem like the type of crazy girl to kill her boyfriend or husband for no reason. A man shouldn’t be scared of the girl he loves… lol .

You have no chill and that’s not a very desirable quality. I still love you of course but I won’t do anything about it… I wonder if I’m allowed to hit you up tho … maybe I just might babe 😉 I also wonder if your heart ever aches for me… or if you think about me anymore…. Anyways, I love you . I know we’ll never be together but damn I wish otherwise…

Forever yours,
A

About my friend

Did you really, really know her? Did you know and understand what her dreams were, and did you know her past?
You know you did. You knew her more than others did. And it breaks my heart that at your hands she had to spend so much time reliving things that she never should have had to go through again. When you should have been there for her.
It did make her stronger. She had no choice but to overcome. But seeing what she went through, I wish that it had never happened.
I’m not trying to make you out to be a bad person, but you had a responsibility in damaging her. So as a friend who loves her, I can’t let you get close to her again. She is a special person and her heart, after all it had been through, should have been protected.
You knew better, too.
She thought that you were on her side and would not leave her or crush her heart. And she should have known those things in the end as truth from you. But none of that was actually true, despite the fact you hinted and acted like it was when it served you.
When it came down to it, when the stakes were highest, you betrayed her. You hurt her in a way she never expected or experienced before, and that was after you knew her. After she let you in. Everything she was risking for you, you should have understood the weight of, given your own experiences. But for some reason, you could only think of yourself.

You must have felt that you had some right to be close to her while you were still attached to someone else and staying emotionally loyal to them without telling her. She knew that was the case after, in the way you spoke to her or what you did behind the scenes.
I wasn’t there but it is obvious even in the basic details she shared. And if not that, after the fact it is clear that you saw your actions as justifiable given your own “damage.” If you are at all still living in delusion about that, defensive about your feelings then, that is wrong. You never should have talked to her or flirted with her from day one if that was the case. You should have been straightforward and respectful the entire time. Not taking advantage of her emotions because of how good it made you feel in the moment, then forgetting about her and abusing her heart the second she was no longer convenient.

It seemed like you could not help yourself.
That you still had some sort of perception even after it all to believe that you were a victim somehow. I don’t know if you really got it.
That once she realized how wrong she had been about you, the damage was there.
Her reaction was not “unkind,” for her to shut down and quietly grieve after she had mistakenly showed her emotions when she was vulnerable, or her to need help and unfortunately turn to you in weak moments, when you would just hurt her more. It wasn’t because she is petty that over time she realized she did not want anything to do with it anymore.
She could never see you the same or trust you again because of how you hurt her. She did not decide that in retaliation.
She did not want to remember those things or have to be angry or hurt at all. She ended up there because you broke her. That is your fault, and it baffles me that you ever brought up anything she said against her when your words were so terrible to begin with.
You do not see that you are the source of any misery.

I wish you had seen the gift you had. Instead, you tried to destroy it. And you almost succeeded.
You have no idea what she went through but I do, because I was there. I will never understand how someone could know her and yet treat her this way. I know how sweet and caring of a person she is. She truly gives of herself in a way you could never appreciate. It may have been as simple as your attention being divided or elsewhere. But neglect can be as bad as cruelty. It was cruel to her.
She loves deeply. I am like that too, so I know the huge risk that is and how bad it can be when that is mishandled.

I am not wanting you to feel worse. Just know reality. Just because you regret it later, which it seemed more so due to consequences to yourself rather than to her, doesn’t mean you have changed.
I want you to understand that despite what she may think or do at times because of the kindness of her heart, even for you at times, which makes zero sense to me, I am not going to let this happen to her again. I’m the one who intervenes and I always will. As long as I am here.

And remember if you feel a wall there now it’s because you originally put it up, and I am ensuring it stays there… to protect her.
I will always be there to remind her of the truth, for her to be strong, to be smart.
You can go back to your obsession with whatever was so important you could put her down for it. Which likely, you already did. Or are still at least partly living in anyway. Based on what I know of people similar to you, you are probably going back and forth depending on where you are or what seems most likely at any point in time. A classic case of not knowing what you want, of wanting to have it all without having to sacrifice a thing.
If you went back to that person after telling her you hadn’t, then reached out to my friend at any point after, you should be ashamed of showing that much disrespect.

You did not deserve to know any part of her soul. Consider yourself lucky you once did. And let it sink in that this is over, permanently, forever.
Maybe she tried to forgive, maybe she will continue to try because of who she is, but there will be no second chance.
And if she is ever weak or tired enough in life to momentarily empathize to the point of being open to you even slightly again, I will step in to make sure nothing comes of it.

Where the poem dies

Is this how a poem dies?
Does it occur with closed fists, belly full of thousands of
Dead butterflies never seeing air,
Your name bottled up while I swim down the rivers of my tears
And my mouth becomes but yelps from a mad dog
Aching for a more loyal companion?
I wished it every day through
Misguided attempts, romantic fails,
Through canyons of longing
And hurdles of neon lights and
Hospital dazed vision boards
to reach you.
I dreamt of our meeting just as I have dreamt
Of our parting, eyes staring blankly into the abyss of others who kiss
But do not pierce my soul.
You were everything but indifferent.
All I have now is a film reel full of confusion, friends who cannot
Decipher my sadness, reality striking down as a gavel with the innocent verdict thrown out the window.
Is this how a poem ends,
Always hardly before it arrives?
Just like us
Exacty like you and I.

What am I to you?

What am I to you? I guess I’ll never know. At least I got to experience all the shitty parts of a relationship with you, and maybe there’s a personal moral victory somewhere for me to celebrate someday that I stood by for so long without even a whiff of the good parts. On second thought, it just makes me feel pathetic, but I already knew that and you still don’t care.

This is war

Where are the heroes of our time? Often I feel alone because most people I know just give in. No one dares to think. They are just scared. Sometimes I wonder if you already gave in as well. This is war. I’ll fight till I die. I will not give in because life wouldn’t make sense anymore if we let them win.

December 5, 2021

My neighbor throws a holiday party for the kids. It’s some holly jolly wholesome with paper craft snowglobe projects and food. There’s a few people I don’t know but everyone’s nice and we make the best of the small space. The party culminates with a silly string Fiesta outside right before the temperature takes a deep dip.

Later in the evening it’s my turn to party. The husband watches the kid after my lady friend picks me up for our first excursion to Mission ballroom, one of the newest venues in town and it is quite impressive. We’re greeted with a heated parking garage and speedy entrance service, even with the vaccine card check and metal detectors. I get us some drinks and we find a prime balcony spot for stage viewing.
The first band was a good buildup in this nicely size music hall with plenty of tiered seating and a massive disco ball hanging from the ceiling. This was the last show of the tour and no corners were cut to bring the sound. Zeal & Ardor were very thematic with their song selection.

Then bathroom breaks. What joy! The bathrooms are large enough that there’s not a single time in the evening that I have to wait in line for the facilities.

My boys in Mastodon are up then and they bring the visual stunners. I haven’t seen a light show like that since tool and the acid art on their massive screens is an experience that is unique. What I love about shows like this is that I’ve been with the band so long that the set lists feel like a conversation with old friends giving you advice and comfort. While massive krakens and dancing demons peer out through the screens.