Emerge

Hiding under the bed, I became used to dust bunnies in my nostrils, and weird shiny bits of paper occasionally floating by me. Still, it was generally warm and, the main point of being there, quiet. Once, a pair of fuzzy-slippered feet hesitated not far from my nose, and there was a distant and muffled noise that just might have been my name being called. It’s hard to say… I’ve rather forgotten the sound of my name. There were the right number of syllables. I think.

Another time, a wee mousie scurried under my bent knees, on his way somewhere more interesting and less encumbered by my presence.  Even had it been moving more slowly, slowly enough to make eye contact before disappearing beyond the short range of my dimming vision, I’m not sure I would have invited it to stay. I had little if any conversation left in me, and what else does one offer a wee mousie, when one is hiding under the bed?

Generally, I spent my time humming quietly to myself, solving word problems that I set for myself, in my head… very simple ones, of course. I wasn’t there to expand my intellect, after all. Once in a while, I would squint my eyes to examine whether my fingernails had become too long, and if so, I would chew calmly on them until all was right again. I was content, as content as one should be with no disturbing view of the outside world, no distracting opportunity to flex muscles, no annoying food or water, no… well, no bathroom facilities.

Honestly, it was this last that motivated me, finally, to emerge. The necessities of life and human contact can’t be avoided forever, apparently. First I stretched out my right arm, and wiggled my fingers beyond the shadow of the mattress. The air felt a little cool, but bearable. I waited for a while, for possible negative side effects or consequences. Nothing. Nothing touched my fingers, no one yelled in sudden, frightening awareness of my re-emergence. I waited longer. Finally, I began to shuffle my body along the dusty floor, pausing once to sneeze into my elbow, as I have been painstakingly taught to do. When I finally dragged my head out into the open, I covered my eyes with one hand. Too much light. Too much, too soon. I began to hear street noises, distantly, in the background. I eventually uncovered my eyes, and looked toward the source of the light and noise… a window, blinds closed, but not fully blocking the outside from intruding on the inside.

In time, I gathered my courage, and rolled over onto my hands and knees, and slowly, used my hands on the edge of the bed to pull myself into an unaccustomed upright position. I shook my head, patted my hair, smoothed my clothes, and… here I am. Please don’t make any sudden movements or loud noises. I’ve become unused to it. I startle easily. But here I am.

Write It Out!

I wake up with a low rumbling at the edge of my consciousness. I’m not immediately certain whether this is a headache or the angst of the night making a last protest and grab at my attention before receding at the approaching day. The sensation does not pass, though. It insists and takes hold, until I am forced to recognize it. It steals the tepid pleasure from the pale wintry sun trying weakly to push its sickly rays through the blinds across the room. It resonates with the sound of the alarm shrilling suddenly, as always 5 minutes too late. I’m already awake, or the next thing to it. The buzzing at the back of my head is now a throbbing. It is pain, but it is also memory, a feeling that is hanging on too long, according to my practical daily self, and the practical daily people who tell me to move on, let go, get over it. I placidly, obediently agree. I set my conditions, double my efforts, and refuse to give in.

It doesn’t go away, though. It stays there, buzzing, rumbling, throbbing, ready for the next grey morning, to remind me. It always infiltrates slowly, day after day, this knowledge of my unhappiness. I’m running out of options, though, of energy for fighting it, beating it down. Moving on, letting go, getting over it… that’s the easy part. The thing, though, that presence, that knowledge follows me, through my day, giving me respite only at night, knowing that it is waiting, hovering to push back in with my consciousness. It, memory, has to let go of me, and it hasn’t.

I’ve tried talking it out of me. I can’t do that any more. I’m the one who is talked out. I have attempted to cry it out, walk it out, think it out. It’s stubborn. It hangs on, as if with the primitive understanding that, once out, it will not be welcomed back. This is my next essay. This time, I will try to write it out. If I get the words just right, just write, it will fly from me, out the tips of my fingers, with those words, into space, into emptiness, I don’t care where.  I need to type the magic words, the sentence that will free of my self-imposed sentence. Can it be as simple as knowing the incantation? I suspect that even this apparently magical solution will not rid me of this burden.

Border Security

The first impression is that there are no limits. All seems to be open and wild and free. You may roam where you will. If you step across an invisible barrier of any kind, it isn’t immediately obvious. You could probably cross that line a dozen times without being aware that it is there.

It does exist, though. Each time it is crossed, it becomes slightly more visible, gradually, only very gradually. It is as if the keeper of the border is almost infinitely patient. Almost. If you choose to spend time here, you need to watch carefully, keep an eye on that line that at first doesn’t even seem to exist. Eventually, if you keep walking over it in your ignorance and haste, it will become solid, and you may trip on it. Take that as your warning. The next time you trod carelessly toward it, you won’t be able to cross, you won’t even trip over it. You’ll find, quite suddenly, that it is a brick wall, unclimbable. You’ll see the ‘Keep Out’ sign. If you persist, if you push on the wall, you’ll realize it isn’t even only impassible. It’s an electric fence, and your stubborn insistence on trying to bypass it will only result in disaster for you.

Much better to stay on the outskirts, enjoy the appearance of freedom of access, and resign yourself to the fact that some places are just off limits to you.

Surrounded by twits…

Dear Clueless One,

Here’s a secret.

If you like me, if you want to impress me… learn to spell! It isn’t ‘luv’, it’s ‘love’. It isn’t ‘yr’, or ‘u’, or ‘r’… it’s ‘your’, ‘you’ and ‘are’. Punctuation is nice. Beginning sentences with an uppercase letter is fun. Give it a try.

Yours in frustration and disdain,

Boh

P.S. Referring to Yourself always with a capital letter doesn’t actually make You my Dom. Idiot.

And while we’re at it…

Dear Self-Centred Egotistical Pricks,

Get over yourselves.

Sincerely determined to remain free of you,

Bohémienne

P.S.  You weren’t that good in the first place.

An open letter to all the fuckwits in my life…

Dear Fuckwits,

Enough already.

Yours very sincerely, more sincerely than you can possibly imagine,

Bohémienne

P.S. Fuck off.

Another Excuse Not to Write

First is the visual. I see sparks, or maybe sparkles. I’m not quite sure which it is, but it obscures, without blocking. Closing my eyes causes the shimmer to subside, but it’s not such an unpleasant feeling, so I try not to give in to that temptation. Really, if I move my head quickly enough from side to side, I can look around those glimmering triangles of light. Gradually, though, I can’t keep moving that quickly. I become dizzy, or the next phase starts pushing into my awareness. It travels. It begins in the back of my neck, just enough discomfort to make sure I’ve noticed and made the connection. I have. I know what’s coming next. The parts that will hurt will not be the parts that are causing the pain. My skin will hurt. My hair will tingle. My teeth will ache. If I can bear to keep my eyes open, and try to focus, I will see only through a milky haze. Fire-arrows will slice through my temple, from one side to the other, battering the insides of my skull on their way through. The nausea will eventually take over where the pain refuses to leave off.
Sometimes I persist past this point… I keep typing, or writing, or talking, or walking. Normalcy is almost beyond me, though. My speech staggers, my gait falters, my temper hesitates. Now the dim autumn light assaults, the noise of breathing aggravates, the presence of bodies in my vicinity becomes unbearable.

Eventually, I give in. I close my eyes. I seek the dark. I crave the quiet. I ride it out, however long it takes.  Some tiny bit of my brain that acknowledges reality and patterns knows that this will pass.  This me, in this moment, though, knows no such thing. There is no connection to likelihood. The future itself is too much to contemplate. I hide from consciousness, endure, pray for sleep and deliverance.

Battle Fatigue

I return from the field with the spoils of war in hand, blood-spattered but head held high. My tight smile stays firmly in place as I march past the waving and cheering ghosts. They, the apparitions, are the reasons for this war. I fought for them, for their pleasure, for their pride, for their ego gratification. They know they need to show their gratitude now. Because they know the truth behind the frozen grin and stiff-gaited step. They know that the blood is not the enemy’s. They know that no prisoners were taken because I am too weak, too tired, too drained to hold the vanquished in restraint.

Behind the bluster, beneath the bravado, my victory is hollow and futile. The white flag was hoisted with a look of pity and compassion in your eye. You gave in more than you gave way. Your words say that I have won, but you have offered no guarantee, no promise besides the immediacy of your surrender. From the moment you handed me your weapon, you knew and I knew that capitulation was one way out, one way of stopping the bloodshed, one way of creating a diversion to make full and utter retreat possible.

I carry on holding the weapon and the flag before me as evidence of my strength and my power. You and I know the truth, though.  We both know that domination is only possible with willing submission. If you are gone, and you are indeed long gone, no ground has been gained. But at least the battle is over.

War Zone

We pretend not to be at war. We wear our mufti, and keep our camouflage well hidden at the back of our closets, accessible but invisible. We disguise our weapons with the prettiest of words. We hide our wounds well beneath the tinkling laughter. You’d never know that we’ve left a path of destruction in our wake. The bodies are carefully interred, the blood stains covered with flowers and delicate objets d’art.

The truth is that I am broken, and tired of the fight. I wish for nothing more than to raise my white flag, acknowledge my surrender. The price in casualties has been too high. I no longer have the strength to keep this battle going. The screams are becoming deafening. I am confused, and don’t know which way to run off the field.

How about you? Are you exhausted in your bones the way that I am? Do you dream of peace and tranquility? Are you willing to do anything to make our gentle appearances reality? You can. All you need to do is give up. Admit that I have conquered you. Make me the victor, grant me the spoils. That’s all it will take.

Otherwise, I will continue to ignore the begging of every nerve and impulse in me to be done with this. I can keep this up forever, if I have to. I can sustain this beautiful pretense for as long as it takes. Keep fighting if you wish. It doesn’t matter. Eventually, I will win.

Real

On my end, the words appear on the white background, one letter at a time, staccato, clicking, high speed… the thoughts, ideas, expression of feelings and beliefs come from me, me the person, the whole person. My fingers and the computer are only the vehicle to tell him my story.

On his end, he sees my words one sentence at a time, appearing each time I hit enter. The words are the same as I have sent him… they still express me. That is my intention. I am sending him bits of me, telling him who I am, proving myself, telling, sharing. Sometime in that space, that invisible, instantaneous, non-existent piece of time, though, everything changes. The words become an illusion, the portrait of someone who doesn’t exist. The intentions disappear in subspace. The meanings dissipate. Somehow, the absence of flesh, and movement, and breath, and pulse, means that the fact of me is lost.

With that loss, my expectation and my assumption of being understood also disappear. Letters, black lines on white, words, punctuation, mean nothing, or maybe everything. My essence has gone missing somewhere between here and there.  I use the words to insist on my reality. But I am not believed. He can’t see me, so, to him, I am this pretty thing, and that exciting thing, and that other arousing thing, but really, if I am not me, I don’t exist.