My heart wanted me to cry;
“Again.. Again”, it begged, “I need you to cry again..
unburden me, relieve me, help me, love me, save me”.
I’ve been holding on, holding back, keeping it together,
stamping on all my starved feelings whenever they sprung up, like the gaping red
mouths of orphaned baby birds.
I kept repeating my mantra, counting all my blessings, undermining
my pain, chasing it away with gratitude:
“I’m healthy, my daughter is healthy, we have a home, we
have enough to eat.. I’m healthy, my daughter is healthy, we have a home, we
have enough to eat.. I’m healthy, my daughter is healthy, we have a home, we
have enough to eat.. I’m..” I went on, and on, until the words lost their
meaning, became as irrelevant as the sound of traffic, as mundane as the quiet eerie
hum of a distant machine.
I quickly slid down, as in a game of snakes and ladders. Down,
down, down I went, as if climbing all those laborious, impossible ladders meant
nothing. As if I had no control, the sticky, green venom gushed out of my mouth;
I yelled at my child, I blamed her, I bullied her, I hurt her. Still screaming,
still shocked, whose voice was this coming out of my mouth? Why couldn’t I stop
it? some demon was speaking through me. Ashamed, sad and embarrassed I cried,
and I cried, and I cried. I lay there in a black ravenous hole so enormous, I
knew I could never pull through. “Perhaps this is it, perhaps it’s time to give
up, to let go, to find that beautiful release”, the child inside me wept, “I’m
tired, there’s nothing for me here”, it wept, “I’m tired. Let me go”.
Every bit of me smashed, I heard little pieces rattle
inside me as I took my despair to my parents, “You never loved me, you never
gave me, you never helped me, you never wanted me, you… you… you…” An immense
fiery dragon tore through me, towered over all reason, all meaning, all
understanding. I cried “I’ll never forgive you.. I can never forget”, I cried,
and I cried, and I cried.
I answer the call; my friend’s son has died! My dear friend,
my dear teacher, my dear professor, how could this happen? There is no meaning,
there is only loss, there is only pain, there is only despair, loneliness, separateness,
disappointment, detachment, nothingness, there is no meaning.
I drape myself in black. I attend the funeral. I lean, I
bend, I kneel, I break before the crashing waves of life’s unfairness, life’s tragedies
and life’s futility, I cry, and I cry, and I cry.
