I Am a Fortress

I want to be real.

I want to find the courage to be genuine down to the bone, fearless even when defenseless. I want to be utterly authentic, unashamed of my weakness and imperfection, because it’s our flaws that make us human and our humanness that connects us to one another. We are not wired for solitude. But the only way to satisfy the need for companionship and intimacy is to allow one’s self to be intimately known. It’s an alarming concept for even the bravest soul, and I’m not that brave.

I need to let go of my fears and risk being unguarded in order to offer my true self to anyone. And I want to do that, to find someone to share that with. But I’ve been hiding so carefully for so long that I cringe at even the idea of becoming that vulnerable. It’s just not in my nature. I present to the world a carefully calculated con, designed to appear so open and direct as to avoid closer examination. I can tell you anything and still reveal nothing, because full disclosure is like playing Russian roulette with humiliation for bullets. I guard my true self vigilantly, afraid of discovering that to know me is to loathe me, yet this intractable yearning to be loved and understood leaves me perpetually suspended in the void between extremes. I’m isolated in my own sanctuary, protected from rejection and disappointment, but cut off from love and companionship. My refuge has become my prison.

It’s desolate behind these walls where I’m disconnected from everything that can make me feel anything. But I can’t stand feeling nothing; I need to feel something, so I reach for pain. I hate being afraid, rage is too risky, and pleasure always seems to give way to disappointment, but pain is like an old coat; familiar and dependable and effortless. It’s so easy to inflict the wounds. It’s a vicious part of me I am mortified to own, a Hyde side that is sadistically seductive and shockingly cruel. It seems I’m only satisfied when I’m suffering, a martyr for masochism. It’s twisted, I know.

I become both predator and prey, turning on myself in a pointless, persistent struggle against my own nature. I can’t reach out for the salvation of a human connection because I am captive to the malicious notion that I’m not worthy; I am too damaged, too ugly to be loved. Instead I curl up and let the lies pound at me until I can’t tell them from the truth anymore. When I give in it is almost with relief. I open my arms and welcome the sharp sting of venom to flow over and through me. I force myself to feel the pain, to know I deserve it. I tear into myself with zealous rage, stabbing and ripping with words that bubble from a deep well of self-loathing. I’m consumed by the uproar in my head, alternately stoking and stifling it until finally the ache and the noise wear me down. I search then for silence, drawn to the darkest edges of my imagination to explore the unthinkable. And there I linger, tempted by the promise of peace but restrained by the instinct to survive. In that moment the fragment of stubbornness that ties me to this life feels like torture. I long for escape. I picture it, imagining how sweet it would be to just lose myself in that vacant hush, to feel the resistance drain from me. I want to be empty again. I want to be oblivious to the ugliness of it all.

I’m not afraid to die, but for whatever reason I always hang on until it passes. Eventually I take a deep breath, dust myself off and resume my precarious perch between safety and solace. And I’ll sit there inside those walls until the numbness grows unbearable again. Then I will forget myself and I’ll invoke the pain, until someday, one way or another, I finally let it go.

“There’s no savior hanging on this cross.
It’s not suffering we fear, but loss.
When there’s no one else around to blame,
You’re a burning moth without a flame”

– ‘Moth’ © Over the Rhine

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