Letting go: a silence of five parts

IV. That teacher, pain

i made myself promise that when this was finished i would be fine,

that i would let go:

 - of the good things, and the bad things, and all the rainbow memories in between,

that i would breathe one final breath into that clear night sky, the mist from my lungs rising to meet the stars like an old cat comes to curl up in my lap,

that i would let my memories and regrets dissolve like morning dew in the clean sunlight, and that i would

finally

be 

free. you see

pain can be a great teacher;

when i was very young, too young to remember, i placed my thumb in the mouth of a stapler and pressed down;

i remember the beads of blood so dark and the yells as my mother wondered what in gods name i was doing,

i remember crying as they wrapped a band aid around my thumb, and i remember being scolded by my father,

but to this day i know not to staple my own fingers.

the impossibility of residing within my own mind daunts me; the thought of having to be who i am, and remember who i was fills me with a dread so sharp and cold it could cut dreams in half.

i made myself promise that when this was all over i would leave my guilt and grief where it belonged, and yet when i am staggering home or half asleep it comes out like an old friend, some sadistic lover, and i embrace it like the masochist i am, because if i know one thing about myself, one thing only ive learnt after all thats happened, it is this:

i am addicted to pain.

so i steeple my fingers as i gaze from the window and i stare at the world shifting by,

and to my surprise as each day goes by i find it in myself to heal,

and somehow i am healing, badly for sure, but healing nonetheless.

because i stapled my heart to the light of a dying star, fixated on the hope i found in a purpose greater than simply existing,

and when i snuffed out that star like a petulant child tired of his toys i found that i had lost my voice, and though i screamed into the night no one could hear me.

i have done terrible things to myself, and to the people i have loved.

i have let myself drown and in doing so burned my life to the ground.

i have loved someone who could not love me back, and i have ripped my veins open to cast the grief aside.

i have hurt, and screamed, and punched, and slept.

and now i know that what was and what will never be still resides in my heart, that grief and pain fade but never truly leave, because memory is stronger than fiction, and the echoes of my shadow's ghosts cling to my insides and flush through my veins like ecstasy. what was is what will be and what will never be is what was. 

good night.