I imagine the Egyptians felt about deaths of loved ones a lot like we think about autumn
It isn’t a passing
It isn’t a loss
They are just waiting for them to bloom again.
Plants are a fragile thing but maybe they aren’t as fragile as we think they are
Just as we are often not as strong as we think we are

It is easy to break a person
Especially one who does not want to be broken
Because they are the ones who will fight the hardest and tire quickly
It is much harder to shatter apathy than passion

Then there are the people who want to be broken
People who drink their own pain like water
Or maybe something more toxic like bad wine or good coffee
The people who look at their bruised arms and see lace
Instead of burst blood vessels

Some people need the pain to know they can still feel
They would rather feel agony than feel nothing at all
Some people need pain to create
Pain can be the paint in an artist’s brush, the keystrokes of a writer’s fingers

Some people feel pain because they are afraid to feel anything else
Happiness fades, contentment stagnates, but sorrow is a constant companion
Sometimes I worry
That I am one of these people

I spend my time reading, writing, inhabiting the minds of others
The stories of others
Because I am afraid to look my own story in the face
And see if I like the direction it has taken
Sometimes I live vicariously through the stories of others
Because I am afraid of what will happen in my own

I am trying to be passionate without being breakable
And I am trying to enjoy my water as well as my coffee
And I am slowly learning that I cannot write my story, it must write itself

Inevitably pain is part of every story
Including mine
There will be heartbreak and there will be bruises and there will be hairline fractures, cracks, fissures, schisms
People will leave, be it by death or by simply walking away
But every moment of pain is simply an autumn
A winter
And in time everything will bloom again
Stronger and more resplendent than ever before

The hose snakes, benign and cool, over the fence and into the yard
And water pours soundlessly into the familiar dirt beneath the dying dragons
It wets the burning asphalt
And it is the smell of the hot asphalt and cool water that is home
It is also the half a dozen strawberries dripping with cold tap water
It is the scrape of sunwarmed pavement after dark on bare toes
It is the sunset that makes the trees glow every different color
And the distant headlights swooshing in the dark of too early morning
The tap of fingers on keys in the between of today and the next
The scratch of paper and pencil and the smudge of a ***** palm
The sticky childish joy of ice cream
There is also the promise of crumbling leaves
And rain tapping on the roof at midnight
And wind gusting through treetops and hair
And the constant threat
Of impermanence

I realize it is a silly thing to cry over
But the end of a love that spans a decade is something to be mourned
And as this draws to a close I can feel myself breaking
You have been my childhood
You have caused my tears
And you have kept them at bay
You have taught me to believe in myself
You have shown me the value of friendship
You have kept me safe when I was in danger
Simply by allowing me to return to your pages
And when the credits role I will raise my wand not just to impart those beautiful words
Mischief Managed
But in honor
and in mourning
And in celebration
of the truest friend anyone has ever had

My heart feels too big in my chest
And I cannot see straight anymore as one day blurs drearily to tomorrow morning
Everything closed in for so long
And now I feel it slowly drawing open with all the ominous anxiety of a prey bird's claw
As everything finally opens up and blooms I am shaking
The opening happens too fast
I can feel pieces of myself yanking away
Hairs on a band aid
My face is hot and my arms are cold
There is so much to move towards
But so much to leave behind

There was a child went forth every day,
And everything she heard or saw, whether it was perceived with love, dread, hatred, pity…became a part of her
And it may have faded away in moments, or lingered with the day …or remained for years on end, caught in the web of her mind.
The voices became a part of her
And the broken glass and the splintered wood and the tear streaked faces and more than anything else the shouts
The sharp words and the words that weren’t words but blows and the words that turned to shrieks and the words she blocked with her hands and the slamming of the door… and the words she wrote in her journals… and the sobs coming through the crack in the door…. And the desperate cries for help she stifled with her narrow white teeth… were all a part of her.
And so were the laughter and the marker scribbles and the days at the flea market and the dinners in the living room
And so were the picnics in the yard and the games of t-ball, all those were part of her too, but there seemed much less of that.
And her friends began to dwindle one by one, as she grew older
And as she grew older it all grew worse, former friends gave pointed stares and words that stung like poison darts
And everything was closing in, the house, the town, her own emotions
The shouting was worse, the glass wasn’t broken but instead held poison that made the house stink… the stench of sterility and morgues and slow but ceaseless destruction
Her own father slowly filled her soul with a treacherous ocean of words and tears and memories and mistrust, he let her down again and again and again, he watched her fading and helped her along… whether he knew it or not
The man was still breathing, still had a beating heart, but the father was long dead, shredded to bits by his own words and the broken glass and the splintered wood and bottles of poison
The girl was fading swiftly, blocking off her door with silence and books to hide behind
They never questioned the self inflicted bruises since she was clumsy anyway….the dark circles beneath the hollow eyes were never commented upon, the silent tears were never seen… hidden behind glasses and too much hair
She was silent always, not agreeing nor disagreeing, simply hiding.
If she was quiet no one noticed, he didn’t notice, and if he didn’t notice, the words couldn’t hurt
But she wanted to cry out, scream, fight, her head was shouting that this wasn’t right, aren’t fathers supposed to love their daughters not make them bruise their arms and hate themselves? But her heart slammed no no no he can never know how scared we are.
So she bit her lips because bleeding was better than crying and no one noticed the swelling and everyone told her how happy and perfect she was… she faked a smile and bit her lips again
And every night she went home to slamming and shouting and words that bruised like punches
Fat, ****, stupid, useless, worthless, no better than me… the shadows of insults floated behind her eyes, under her skin, manifesting in tears and dark circles and scratches and bruises
She fought and she fought as he tore her apart and every night she stitched herself together
Washed her wounds with her tears and tried her best to sleep.
The shouts and poison were gone when the father left
Leaving the daughter bruised and bleeding and broken and hurting where no one could see
But she stitched herself together
The wounds have time to heal now.
The friends she made would give her new words, the drawings would let her take out her pain and her anger on something other than her skin, the words she wrote were the shouts she never allowed herself
The insults are still there, she has not forgiven the father but without him she would have no pain to pour onto pages like blood from a wound that has yet to scab over and scar, but now there is the laughter and the hands to hold and the new words that remind her of the new memories of grass and sky and smiles and effervescent voices
These are a part of her now too, and they are the things that have kept her going,
And they are the things that will keep her going and going, into a future he claimed she’d never have.