Shades of Reality
There are a million stories in her head
and she can’t make them stop.
The words are relentless,
gnawing, creeping, sliding,
exploding into her mind –
no way to keep out their ethereal presence.
She types to the rhythm
of every beat, back-beat, pause. . .
endlessly.
She escapes to places
where there is less pain.
Where she can’t feel
the things that are killing her now.
She knows full well
that when she was in those other places
she wasn’t truly free.
In fact,
she was just as handcuffed
to their brutal truth
as she is now.
There is no way to bleed them out,
to open a vein, clean and sharp,
and let them fall out of her.
They are her.
To lose those words
is to lose a piece of herself.
And the dark words never come,
aren’t known,
on the days when meds
place a barrier around her existence,
when things are on a smooth, normal path.
Those days she has no tears
like the ones she has today.
Just numbness.
Today the feelings are raw,
and pointed,
and demand she not turn her head.
She’s tucked words in corners,
in teacups and bottles,
placed them on shelves,
folded them into the towels -
shoved them deep into pockets
hanging at the back of the closet.
There are so many she’s lost track of them all now.
They go out with the trash,
float through the window,
slide down the drain.
And yet, her mind,
her fingertips,
are full.
Words she knows
words she doesn’t.
Stories of her own, stories of others -
feelings that fly around, in and through,
then slap her
with the sting of a calloused hand -
striking and resonating -
absorbed into the very core of her.
They come fast,
unbridled,
understandable,
incomprehensible.
More words than she could ever capture
on pages white or otherwise.
She’s scrolled them over newsprint
curled under her arm
on the subway train
inside the covers of books -
her own and those that belong
to others -
in order to release them,
beg them for mercy,
ask them to stop.
Pleading and exhausted
she lays her head down
and sees the white lights
over the canopy of trees
as she walks west
toward him.
And he smiles,
the tension melting off his shoulders,
and he reaches out for her. . .
Posted by Amanda at December 12, 2003 11:35 PM
