another night in southern sun
the afternoon light here isn’t what it should be. This colorado sun is too bold, too brash.
I like my sunlight to be weak. to fall around me like a gauzy fluttering veil. not thrusting and jamming at me where everything is so soft and tender.
soooooooo… I think I’ve figured out why I have had such a hard time letting go of gordon. I think because I didn’t want to admit to what I was letting go of.
M tried to get me to see. how long have I been saying that I do it for the kids. all of it, for them. because I am being a good mother. because I am making sure they have the best relationship with their father that I can manage. It’s why I stayed as long as I did, it’s why he’s in our lives now. He was the bed I made, the bed I had to lie in. so I say to myself do the best you can with him, let him keep eating away at you, for the boys.
M said “that’s not the reason. stop pretending it is.” and I thought she was being mean. She was suggesting I kept him around because I was too scared, or weak, or lazy, too selfish, to do otherwise? really?
but no. that wasn’t it. what she saw was that I wouldn’t be free until I admitted the truth to myself.
something really basic, simple, boring. the reason is because I loved him. I loved gordon. I wasn’t just tolerating him. I didn’t love him out of obligation or duty or a twisted sense of responsibility. I wasn’t with him out of boredom. I loved him. I loved us. it was this connection we had. no denying it. the sex… a tinderbox. but even beyond sex. he was the bass. I was the melody. and all the good people know there is more than one way to have sex. all the best people.
our chemistry would set fire to the city and leave us swirling around in a white of ash and it was okay, because we were together.
I would drown in his smooth olive skin, like a pool. I could have my secrets but he still knew me, without words, without stories. Just touch and smell and sound. I didn’t have to be. I just was.
he worshipped me.
like a queen.
no, like a goddess.
no. more.
I was the moon and he was the night sky wrapping around me.
it was there before the drugs came. and when the drugs did come? well, it ratcheted everything up and then locked it in. we existed up here and everyone else existed below.
but then the drugs do what drugs do. they poisoned us. him. and when I could let them go, but he couldn’t, we were ruined.
there is no going back, christa. never. that gordon is gone. these glimmers you sometimes see are just illusions. shadows. tricks of the light. who you see now is who he is and it can’t be any different. it will never be different.
so you loved him and you lost him and it doesn’t matter how or why. it happened. now you can mourn and grieve for this. and then you can let go. you can let go and find your way to something new. I don’t want to rush you, cjm, I know you always have to do things in your own way on your own timeline. but be careful.
because you know that feeling you get whenever he’s around now? that anxious, edgy, bouncy feeling? the barrier that kept you safe, the one between you two, between okay and not okay… do you see how brittle it has become? and with every step you take away from him, it cracks even more.
yes, I do believe he could kill me one day. truly actually kill me. Not in some fit of angry violence. that is something I could deal with. but this isn’t that. When someone loses his temper and becomes physically violent, there is an obviousness to it. But with him, he doesn’t “lose his temper”. he slips into the dark, where reality and reason don’t exist. and when it comes, it comes in quiet. stealthy. you might not even know it’s there. well, until it’s too late. just the way it sneaks in between us, snaking around our ankles, before it finds its way into his nerves. and then I can smell it in the air. my skin starts to feel itchy.
He would drive us into a wall, maybe, or another car headed our way. put something in my food. slide a knife into me, slow, easy, with so much love. set fire to my bed when I am sleeping.
because he thinks I belong with him. to him. (I think that sometimes too.)
so here I say it. it is okay to feel sad. it is okay to keep a piece of him with me. it is okay to admit I loved him. and to admit that love can rot like fruit. what happened to us breaks my heart, it really does, I feel ravaged by it and that I won’t ever be able to love anyone again. and that is also something I need to be okay with.
I am sorry I didn’t see this sooner, I maybe could have saved a lot of emotional turmoil for me and the boys. better late than never. let’s just hope I make my way there before never wins.