RingoI feel like a fool
How can I forget such an easy thing?
I’ve done it hundreds, maybe thousands of times
I used to be so good at it. Nothing could stop me, it was as easy as breathing
I look for the way and my muscles feel like they belong to someone else
My thoughts get confused, My eyes look away, desperate to find something else, to not face…the pain? The embarrassment? The trial?
Or perhaps
They don’t want to remember
How to cry.
How many times recently? I used to cry once a week, from the simple pain of being alive…but now?
Less than once a year, not a single time in the past 2 that I can remember.
Once briefly when my grandma died 3 falls ago.
Never for my other 3 grand sires.
Once while blacked out 10 years ago when we hear Mike never made it home. I still remember the displacement, the moment reality disappeared…and I remember waking up when it had returned, but don’t remember letting it out. ‘
Once when I thought she would leave me, but never when she actually did. Not when I left her either.
When you hurt me I tell myself I can handle it
When you cut me I hold the wound and refuse to let it leak.
When my words destroy you, I retreat to my anger till I can find cold hard logic.
When I try to remember those I’ve lost, I lose my way, I see the pain, I see the loss, but the whole I feel is not the absence of them, but an emptiness of everything.
When I tell myself it’s ok to feel, I hear my own voice telling me I can’t, its not
When I picture the release and the breakdown of control, the counter images of Men, Of hereos, of tough guys, of simple fathers who protect, of my own who never lost control, except to yell and fight to gain it, all those jump in.
When I start to feel the relief of letting go, I feel the shame of not being able to hold on.
Soon though…Soon my grip will break. I hope I can remember how before then. I hope I can choose my moment. I hope I can choose my reaction.
But I don’t know if I remember how.