08/14/2010

Illicit and tempting.  Looking for something, but never finding what I need.  Feeling the edges fade, lose their ragged touch.  I run my fingers down them, smoothing the torn pieces, not mending but rendering unmendable.  They disintegrate beneath my touch.  Smooth.  Smoother. Gone.

I hold my hand up to the light and ponder it.  What it touches.  What it feels.  What it wants.  What it misses.  Light falls around me, kissing at the darkness, sheltering me from the night that threatens.   Yet.  Yet reality fractures.  Yet self dissolves.  Yet I watch it play out around me.  Not in it. Not part of it. Not Feeling. 

So cold inside that it spills to my skin.  So cold inside, so empty, that I pull my jacket tighter around my frame and shiver against the heat.  A passerby comments to me, "Its a scorcher today, isn’t it?" I smile and agree politely, trying to hide the fact that I am shivering.  Shivering in long pants and a jacket.  Heat index: 105.  Am I broken?

I’ve been here before.  I’ve seen these shores, felt this emptiness.  I have always made my way back from the madness.  But each time I visit the temptation to stay nibbles at me.  Give in.  Give up.  Lose the responsibility.  Gain control.  Cut more. Eat less. Become Less.  Disappear. 

Strong as I never was.  Strong as others perceive me to be. 

Not okay.

But I will be. As always. 

The demons may taunt me, but I best them.  I always best them.  Yet they do not give up.  Maybe they know something I don’t.